Paper books are still my favorites!

I am sure you have guessed by now that I am an avid reader. I think I have never not been reading a book. As an early reader read all the Enid Blyton series ( Noddy, The Famous Five, Malory Towers, The Secret Seven etc.) As a teenager delved into Classic English literature with Daphne Du Maurier, Bronte Sisters, E. M Forster, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, George Eliot and endless others. Read plenty of P.G Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Robert Ludlum, Jeffrey Archer on the side.

Then in my twenties ventured into more heavier stuff such as  Thomas Hardy, John Steinbeck, Margaret Atwood and also started reading translated works of well known authors like Ben Okri, Paulo Coehlo, Jose Saramago. So as you can see my reading choices changed and evolved as I was maturing and evolving too.

Most of the authors I liked I bought the books of, and so I still have many with me. When I see those books I don't only remember the storyline but I also remember the time when I read it, who gave it to me or where I bought it, how it was a companion in those days.

I still have the book all my classmates from 6th grade autographed and gifted me when we moved to a different city. I also still possess Hemingway's "True at first light", the first book my husband bought me and wrote a sweet love note on the first page. That was when we visited the Ernest Hemingway house in Key West, Florida.

Then about a year back, I was going through a bad patch when I saw 'Game of Thrones' by R.R.Martin at the bookstore, I had obviously heard the name and decided to buy it. I started reading it rather skeptical of it's fame but this book pulled me in, R.R.Martin's story writing just transported me into this phantasmal world of deception, scheming, swords, magic and dragons. It allowed me to escape from my blues long enough to heal and move on. I read the whole series up to the latest work 'Dance with Dragons' within a month or so. But now I have this special association with those five books, they were there for me when I was down and needed a boost.

I am sure that I am not the only with a story like this one. My books are just like old friends to me, they are always there for me to go to when I need them. This is why I will always buy paper books, keep them and  treat them with the love and respect they deserve.

Postscript: 

I decided to write this piece when I saw this headline on BBC World this morning;

Amazon e-book offer riles independent bookshop owners

Bookshop owners have hit back at an initiative by Amazon to sell its Kindle e-book reader in independent shops. The Amazon Source programme, launching first in the US, would let bookshops sell the devices and receive a small cut of e-book sales thereafter. ( Read Whole article)

The gist of it being that Amazon is working hard to discourage people from buying books, that is real books, you know the one actually printed on paper and bound. The ones we can hold, open instantly at two different places, the ones that we sometime dedicate or gift to someone, the one we get authors to autograph, the ones that have passed down to us through the generations, yes those real precious and valuable books.