I can’t Kindle, nor can I Knook.  I Know it’s Nook.

Maybe it’s because I volunteered in the kids’ school library for the three years while we lived in Germany.  I also volunteered at the kids’ next school library for years.  (No, they still haven’t forgiven me.)

I was part of helping both school libraries change over to a computer system vs. the old library card system where  one would sign to borrow each book.  I loved doing that.  I also loved shelving the books.  Because when I’d shelve, I’d peruse each book before Deweying it or Library of Congressing it properly.  A flip glance of the book in general would show how often it had been used.  Are there pictures in here?  Had anyone made notations in here?  Why were those things notated, why were they important?

On those e-readers, I can’t flip the page over, I can’t dogear the page to show it’s mine.  Unfortunately, I can leave them in the doctor’s waiting room with much anxiety over its loss and (probably not) recovery.   If I drop it, I’m cooked.  If I lose it, it’s pretty expensive to replace.  If I don’t charge it, I can’t read it when I want to.  I can’t read it on the airplane for the fifteen minutes while preparing to take off and fifteen minutes before we land.  I can’t go to it and thumb through it  really fast in the middle of an argument with Marty to find my favorite passage which I’ve underlined so I can make a great point, and say, “aha”.   (Tolstoy is my favorite for doing this.)

An e-reader is boring, it has no soul or character, it is cold.

So today I’ve come downstairs (out of my beloved bed) to shelve my latest reads in their proper place and play a little music while doing it.

My Little Library