Book Abuse: The Trauma of Dog-eared pages

I'm currently reading The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Vishwanathan, a big, fat book with many pages. It belongs to The Duchess who is generous to a fault with lending items from her personal library--too generous because some of her books/dvds have been sadly classified as Missing In Action in a forever, full stop, plan the funeral kind of way. I tell her book kidnappers need to be banned from her library, but she persists, her eyes glaring it's for the greater good as she shucks books at gluttonous readers left and right. Guests leave her house cheeks rosy, guts paunchy, dragging bags of books behind them.

My shelves house an entire section of books that belong to The Duchess. This is okay, she tells me, because my books have also taken up residence on her shelves. She likes it that way; we have interchangeable book collections, transient volumes that are at home wherever they happen to reside -- the "what's mine is yours" ideal.

This would be fine except for the fact that I treat what's "mine" very badly. I'm a book wrecker. I like my books to feel like they've been read. My books are like shoes; I break them in. This means I deliberately crack spines before I've even started reading. I like to warm them up before I sink in. I love that satisfying, creaky paper-moan--it's like I'm cracking book knuckles and it feels so good. I read through paperbacks, covers folded back--and even try to fold back hardcovers so I can snuggle down deep. If it's a good book, I'll roll it up like a newspaper and feel it warm into the curve of my hands. I flip through the pages with my thumb and mess 'em up until the sharp-cut edge of paper is worn and feathered. Through the course of one reading, the book and I become one.

If I'm reviewing a book, I massacre it with notes in the end pages and margins, my scrawling, unreadable handwriting jamming through the text, oblivious and self-important. If I'm snacking while reading, no napkins are needed. Peanutbutter smears, smashed up bits of chocolate, and flowery drops of juice texturize my book pages, every flip of a page a glimpse into the delights of my appetite.

Book jackets never make it through an entire read. They are annoying and disruptive. I slide them off and they tumble to my bedroom floor, crushed beneath the roll of my desk chair, kicked under piles of unwashed laundry never to be seen again.


But, as I recently learned through a series of panicked texts between The Duchess and I, the most deplorable act of book wreckage I practice is the brutish habit of dog-earing pages. She likes her pages straight and clean, no obnoxious, unruly dents.

My room is littered with forlorn bookmarks all gifted to me by well-meaning friends who don't understand how unnatural and disruptive it is for me to have to slide a strip of paper in and out of my pages every time I read. I will start with good intentions, all civilized and proper, a lovely embellished bookmark tucked into my book and carefully set aside while I daintily flip pages...but then the bookmark is lost in the folds of my duvet, or has fallen under the bed, or is crushed beneath me, or is trampled by spiders and I simply cannot be bothered to worry about where it went and what I'll do without it.

I'm an aggressive dog-earer. I will fold pages right in half if there's a passage I want to come back to later. I'm not discriminating either--I will fold both top and bottom corners and will even commit double folds on those rare, but special occasions.

But when The Duchess informed me that this was the one and only thing* she could not endure her books to suffer, I realized I had to reform--at least when I was reading one of her books, which is in fact, a lot of the time. So I found a bookmark. It was adorned with pressed flowers. It had a crimson tassel.

The Toss of a Lemon is a very big, very fat book. I am enjoying it. The bookmark is still there. But I am in pain. I feel as if I've been put in restraints. Sometimes I can't breathe properly. I will admit that I do feel a bit more refined. I think I even sit up a little straighter when I read with my bookmark. I am suddenly respectable, me and my pressed flower bookmark settling down for an evening read.

BUT TAKE HEED: I am doing everything I can to stop myself from ripping this book in half. The content is fine, but this energy, this excess energy, it is driving me mad.

Are you a book wrecker? Or, do you like your pages smart and clean?

* I don't think The Duchess would appreciate food decay smashed between the pages of her book either, but because she was particularly insistent on her hatred of folded pages, I focussed my energy there. No juice stains to report.


Photo Credits: Worn book titled "Salim's visitor book" by Jaymis Loveday, clean books titled "Books" by shutterhacks, book with bookmark titled "A Storm of Swords" by flossyflotsam.

Too Embarrassed to Read

A recent post on Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes touched on the inner anxiety of reading below our "reading status." Athitakis dwells on what it means to read "middlebrow" fiction and the weight the word carries for readers who are painfully self-aware:

"To be middlebrow is to suffer from status anxiety. To be middlebrow is to read/watch/listen to things that you think qualify as high art but really aren’t, because you don’t have the intellectual chops for high art. To be middlebrow is to fail—and worse, fail for trying too hard."

This awareness of middlebrow culture--the mere fact that it exists and that we recognize it--points to an internalized anxiety of where we think we should belong along the spectrum of culture. By extension, the theory of status anxiety can be applied to any genre or classification of literature and its implications are the same: readers are ruthlessly self conscious and use their reading selections as a method of self-analysis. What we choose to read is seen as a reflection of our tastes, our intelligence, our ability to differentiate good writing from bad, quality reading material from excess matter.

This self-analysis has as much to do with how we perceive what others think about us as it does with the active process we are constantly undertaking of molding our tastes and selections to fit the image we have of ourselves--or at least the ideal version of ourselves we aim to embody. If we, as Athitakis mentions, avoid a particular writer or genre because of the implicit shame associated with reading it, we are tailoring our reading lists to coincide with a set of internal reading values--the sense that there are some things we should read and other things we shouldn't.

Reading values are honed by a variety of factors--experience, education, exposure to reading material as a young child--all creating a subconscious method of ranking what we read, differentiating between what is "good" and what is "brain candy"--enjoyable, but "bad" for us and somehow diminishing. However, a value system is not synonymous with taste. They're in a symbiotic relationship, one influencing the other, a constant tug and pull that dictates what we pick up off the shelves. You can be a critical, selective reader (in many circles this is known as being a book snob) but still have a penchant for commercial thrillers that may not have the literary meat that you usually prefer.

But, it's the shame that interests me. We care deeply about what others think of us. This is because we are keenly aware of how quickly, easily, and smugly we judge others. If we think less of someone who openly reads Danielle Steele on the train because they are happily absorbed and entertained by what we see as exploitative, sexually charged fantasies, we have made an assessment of their taste, their place in society. We reduce (or lift) people to the book they hold in their hands. One informs the other. And so, we view the books we choose to read as modes of insight into our intelligence, creativity, and taste. Our books are who we are.

But more interestingly, the choice to read salacious romance novels for example, is perceived as a fault of the reader--they read romance novels because they don't know better. They think they're "readers" but they're victims of bad taste, suffering from a lack of proper literary know-how. They're pawns in the game of popular, cotton candy publishing. They aren't real readers. But if you're reading Ondaatje, you've got depth. Your judgements of others are internalized practices that guide standards you hold for yourself. You don't read romances because they don't hold anything of value for you. You value something else.

And of course, the natural progression of this argument--if I were more objective--would be to re-analyze what we view as trash and whether it has merit or anything of value to offer. It probably does. However, I think it's perfectly fine to subscribe to a set of standards. Everything doesn't have to be okay. No one is required to justify Danielle Steele, unless they see value in doing so. Confronting status anxiety is not about discovering a new love for every possible kind of writing. It's not about validating bad writing. Standards are a good thing--they keep the bar consistently raised. Critical readers must be aware; they must have standards.

Confronting the shame we feel when reading a book is about confronting the desire to uphold an image. An image we've created for ourselves, but also the image we know others have created for us. We become prisoners of this "ideal reader", the reader we value in our minds and believe we should aspire to be. But it's also not as easy and saccharine as claiming we should break free of these moulds and pride ourselves on whatever our innate desires guide us towards. Reading is not about self-esteem.

Admitting an insatiable desire for pulp fiction, salacious romances, or Dan Brown isn't the downfall of literature. You can enjoy "rubbishy twaddle", even find value in it, without sacrificing your standards for good, quality literature. You can even create a sound theoretical argument that aims to recognize the literary value of such work. You can decide that some if it in fact, is good literature. But, you don't have to. You can read it even while acknowledging that it might be bad writing, that it really should never have been published, that it's terrible, terrible stuff--and accept that you like it. It falls somewhere on your personal reading spectrum and you like it because you like it--and that's okay.

But more than anything, understanding status anxiety is about valuing our shame and seeking to understand the driving force behind it. Our shame, or more often, our utter distaste of a certain kind of book can make us consider our standards and the personal principles we apply to reading. We can shape ourselves as readers by first understanding what we implicitly want to avoid. It doesn't have to mean change; in fact, perhaps it shouldn't. It can simply be an acute awareness of where we stand and why--a better understanding of who we are as readers and where we want to go.

Tell Me a Story: Leah Jane Esau's WATERFRONT: THE BLESSING

Waterfront: The Blessing directed by Amanda Lockitch and written by Leah Jane Esau was like that first bite of dry toast after a long illness--uncomplicated in the best way possible, it was a mouthful of something solid and satisfying: plain, good storytelling.

Part of the SummerWorks Theatre Festival in Toronto, Waterfront is a production of Les Nouvelles Theatre, a grassroots theatre company founded by Esau and comprised of a group of talented artists in various fields (set and costume design, dramaturgy, lighting, and of course, acting). Written by Esau under the dramaturgy of Brian Drader at the National Theatre School of Canada and further developed in conjunction with Lockitch in early 2011, the play earned the opportunity to run at SummerWorks--a juried festival that features the glitterati of Canada's theatre world.

Trailer by Leah Jane Esau

The story presses at the pulse of family relationships--the messy, bristling undertones of repressed feelings between fathers and sons, and particularly between brothers. When his father dies, Jeremy arrives from the bustling gleam of Toronto to join his brother Ed in their childhood home, a waterfront property up north, to sort through their father's belongings. Ed's penchant for telling stories and Jeremy's resistance to his brother's hyperbolic ruminations unravels a lifetime of memories; truth becomes duplicitous and stories gain new, sometimes unwanted meaning.

William MacDonald as Ed in Waterfront: The Blessing (Photo Credit: Leah Jane Esau)

The set, designed by Nancy Perrin, has a lush quality, the gift of gentle depth. It achieves the physical sense of a home that's been lived in--dusty, cluttered, and worn through--while evoking the psychological sense of a home that has settled in upon itself, sinking under the weight of a lifetime of disappointment. Very easily, the set could have turned into a visit to the thrift store, vintage furniture crammed haphazardly onto a stage--but this set harmonizes with every other element in the play--absorbing the movements of the characters while reflecting their psychological states. The lighting (by Aaron Kelly) melds all these elements together, signaling emotional shifts and shifting the story from one reveal to the next.

The movement towards these reveals is expertly dramatized--the story layering one truth upon another, unearthing the complexity and dual nature of truth, but also connecting with the audience at a basic human level. The push and pull between Ed and Jeremy (brilliantly played by William MacDonald and Robert Fulton) mirrors the issues rumbling beneath the surface of most family relationships--the struggle to be understood, to be noticed, to be valued by the people we're supposed to love the most. And so, as the tension builds and leads from one revelation to another, the desire to experience emotional release is shared by the audience and that essential connection between stage and spectator is achieved.

Waterfront: The Blessing is a testament to the power and value of story, but also the deeper, more insidious nature of truth, and our perceptions of it. This relationship, the way story and truth go hand in hand, questions truth as that pristine, unrivaled beacon of clarity that we depend on as a foundational guide. It scratches at the pliable nature of truth and questions the value we place on that comfortable but stark vision of the world as black and white, right and wrong. Waterfront does what art should: It makes us take a second glance at what we know and how we live.

Learn more about Les Nouvelles Theatre and the production of Waterfront : The Blessing here.

Ramadan Reflection: Seeing the Glory in the Struggle

"Light Breaks Over Her" by Robb North

As Ramadan shifted deeper into the summer months and began its steady approach, I noticed a familiar dread, this curdling of pent up fear, inside me. Friends and family expressed how much they loved Ramadan, how much they missed it, and how glad they were of its return--but I was finding it difficult to feel the same. Their rejoicing, public exaltation, this unbridled happiness--it was almost suffocating. It wasn't that I didn't want to hear it, it was that I just couldn't measure up.

There is this universal ache among humans, regardless of spiritual beliefs, to want to begin anew. After a period of time, whether it be a spiritual cleanse, a physical one, or a combination of both, we want to shed our old skins and start fresh, a clean slate. We hope that we can be better and we are determined to try. I could certainly relate to the Muslims around me who, with the approach of Ramadan, clearly recognized the opportunity to devote themselves to being better people. I know the kind of spiritual high that feeds this momentum, this immense, almost giddy gratitude that inspires you to do better and therefore, be better. It's this insatiable desire to strengthen and fortify a personal relationship with God--and in Ramadan, something inexplicable happens to make you want to do it.

So why wasn't I feeling it? Why was this dread, like the smirk of a shadowy friend during tough times, always present at the start of every Ramadan? Yes, there was the obvious fear of long summer hours with no food or drink--how tiring, how hot, how looong it would be. But this fear went beyond the physical hardships I knew I would face--it was deeper and more troubling:

I didn't want to fail.

I didn't want to come up short and be a big disappointment--to God, to myself. I couldn't face the guilt of knowing that yet again, I failed to accomplish my goals. That again, I wasn't as disciplined, as focused, as incredible as I thought I could be. Because in my mind, I could be so awesome. I could be kind; I could be generous; I could hold my tongue; I could give the benefit of the doubt; I could be patient with my parents; I could be understanding of my friends; I could learn more about my faith; I could get more answers; I could stand longer in prayer, in devotion, in solitude; I could be so much more than I was--it all seemed so very possible.

In reality, I fumbled and fumbled often. I lost my patience; I said more than I should; I grew tired and went to sleep instead of standing in prayer; I wasted time; I read far less than I thought I would; I grew angry too quickly; I harboured ill feelings towards others; I held grudges from long ago; I was petty and petulant, irritiable and unpleasant--I was everything I didn't want to be.

I fumbled. I failed.

How easy it would be if these good qualities, this aspirational state of being came naturally, if it took no effort. How much more accomplished would I feel if I could just do the things I wanted to do without falling short so often, with such dedicated self-destruction?

But the thing is, I didn't try to be bad. Most of the time, I wanted to do better--I tried to be better. Sometimes I came up empty. Other times, I flourished. And really, it's as simple as that: there was no perfection; there was struggle.

Arabic is not my native language. I can read it phonetically, but aside from a set of basic words that have become second nature, I do not understand what I am reading. To understand and truly benefit from the Qur'an, I read it with an English translation knowing that no translation is perfect, that no translation can fully capture the nuances of the Arabic language, that some words in Arabic simply do not exist in English, or that they require full pages of explanations to provide context and understanding. Still, I gain so much from knowing what I'm reading. It takes me twice as long to read a page, but still, I benefit.

But sometimes, I just want to read. I want it to come easy. I want to fly through the words in this Holy Book, this guiding force in my life and I want everything to zip and zap through my brain in pristine clarity. Until I am lingual in Arabic, it won't happen. I know this. But still, sometimes I simply recite. I feel the words on my tongue, I try to perfect the pronunciation of a particular letter and soon, the words stream out of me in a regulated rhythm and there is belief, there is faith, there is something that presses itself on my heart and I connect.

It is a blessing. It moves me. I am not suddenly perfect. I have not emerged sinless and purified, but this struggle with language--the give and take it requires for me to truly benefit from everything it offers--it mimics the state of struggle that is my life.

Struggle is a state of normal and it's a good place to be. Yes, my Ramadan would be easier, less scary, more bright and hopeful, if all the good I wanted to do came easily. But it would be pointless. Yoda is wrong. It's not "Do or do not, there is no try"--the juice is in the try. Or maybe he's right--and the trying is the doing. As we struggle--we set goals, we try, we fail--and bit by very little bit, we move onwards.

Fear of failure, guilt as a result of failing--these stifle our ability to grow and flourish. I wasn't afraid of Ramadan--I was afraid of what I would not accomplish. This tremendous opportunity to be sincerely repentant, to be gloriously good--and what could I do but be imperfect?

Our success lies in the understanding that struggling is not inferiority, nor is it an excuse to give up. It's difficult and laborious; it leaves you feeling unsettled, sometimes empty. But keep striving, keep going. Imperfection and struggle are not badges of failure--they are battle scars that serve as testament to the soiled, rumpled glory that is our everyday life. There is beauty there. There is joy.

How to Make a Dress Guard/Skirt Guard/Coat Guard for your Bicycle

If you want to outfit your bike with a skirt guard (or for the guys, a coat guard), there are increasingly more options for North American riders.

These options include metal netted guards or bright and colourful woven/crocheted dress guards that you can purchase online, or DIY projects that range in level of difficulty.

I chose the DIY route for a few reasons:

1. I couldn't figure out whether the metal guards sold online would fit my bike, or how I would attach them to my bike (there was minimal info available on these mostly European websites).

2. The bright and lovely crocheted guards require you to drill holes in your fenders to attach them (wasn't willing to do any drilling) while others come with clips that you can snap onto your fenders, but require a certain amount of space between your fenders and your tires to fit properly (didn't have enough space allowance to use this option).

I ended up consulting a tutorial on Instructables (the link seems to no longer be working) and made adjustments to fit my needs.

The tutorial and other DIY projects I've seen make use of tulle--that frothy net-like material used for weddings and ballerinas--but, I wanted something a little more sturdy, easy to clean, but just as affordable. Window screening was my answer!

Materials: Some old newspaper, black window screening (get a roll at your hardware store, or if you have old screens, you can use those! If you buy a roll, you'll spend from $8 to $13, but will have enough to last you several replacements should the need arise), cable ties, tape, scissors, and a marker.


Step 1: Template and Positioning

• Using the newspaper, make a rough template of the guard, cutting and taping as necessary until you get your desired shape/coverage.

• Decide where you want to attach your guard. This will depend on how much coverage you want, but also on where your bike will allow you to attach cable ties. I've used the bars from my rear rack, the seat stays, and the chain stays as my main attachment sites.

• This part is like a dress rehearsal. Mark where you want to put your cable ties right onto your newspaper template. Use cable ties to visually represent where you will attach your ties and how far apart you want them to be. Make sure that your cable ties don't interfere with any brake lines, or shifting cables. At this point, I reverse-looped my cable ties (slid them through the way you're NOT supposed to) so they didn't lock and I could slide them out easily to readjust as needed.

• Do a visual check. Make sure your template isn't interfering with any of the moving parts of your bike. Now you're ready to cut out the real thing!

Step 2: Cut!

• Roll out some window screen and tape your template onto its surface. I chose black screening because its actually less visible than the traditional silver screens and I thought it would look better with my bike.

• Now, cut. Leave about an inch of extra screening around the template (even a bit more is better). I cut my template to fit my bike exactly, and if you do the same, then you should cut out your screening leaving this extra bit around the edge. You can always trim excess later, but having that extra bit allows for more freedom when positioning the guard onto the bike and is necessary to correctly attach your cable ties.

• For the guard on the other side of the wheel, I just flipped the template over, taped it down, and cut. (Note: clear tape does a bad job of sticking. I'd try sewing needles, or masking tape next time).

Step 3: Fit

• This is probably the most finicky part of the process--it helps to have someone else hold the screening as you poke your cable ties through, but no fear! It can be done alone, as I sadly learned.

• Place your guard on the bike so everything is positioned as correctly as possible. I placed my guard over everything (I did not weave it under the seat stays and bars). Select where you want to attach your first cable tie. I started in the middle (with my seat stay), thinking it would be easier to position. I highly recommend starting on one side (either the chain stay, or the bar from the rear rack) and working your way over to the other side.

Step 4: Attach

• Start attaching your screening from one end and work your way to the other. In the picture above, you can see that I have folded the edge of the screening over the bar (that's why we left that extra bit!) and have poked my cable ties through the fold and pulled it snug to hold everything in place.

• When working on the middle (for me, it was the seat stay), you'll poke your cable tie through and then you'll reach through the spokes (it's a tight squeeze--get someone with small hands to help you) to pull the end of the cable tie around the stay. Then, poke it back through the screen. One advantage with starting in the middle is that you have more space to maneuver your hand without the screen in your way...ah, well.
  
  
• In the picture, I have just left the ends of the cable ties hanging (haven't looped them through to lock) so I can reposition if necessary. The screen is more likely to move if you do it this way, but if you tie (lock) at least one of the cable ties, there will be less movement of the screen and you can leave the rest of the ties undone until you're absolutely ready to lock 'em in place.

• I fold the other edge over the chain stay and loop the cable ties through the fold and make sure there is enough slack to allow me to pull the cable ties in the middle (over my seat stay) snug, before I pull the ties on the chain stay snug.

• As I pull each cable tie snug and lock it into place, I make sure I avoid any cables.

• Or, if I have to go over cables or brake lines, I make sure my tie isn't super tight. It's not hanging loose, but it isn't squeezing the white cables either.

• I chop off any excess screening from the edges.

Voila! This is what it looks like almost complete (I haven't chopped off the excess length on my cable ties yet.)

I've done a few test rides and it's been superb so far, although I'm still trying to figure out a way to attach the curved part of the screen to the fender so it doesn't hang out as much. I may try hot glue, but have avoided it thus far because (1) I can't find my glue gun and (2) I'm going for a method that isn't permanent and won't mess up the paint job on my bike.

Biking in Long Skirts is Entirely Possible

When I tell people that I've recently begun cycling and hope for it to become an important part of my lifestyle, I'm often asked how I plan to ride a bike wearing the long skirts/dresses/abayas/jilbabs that are a permanent part of my everyday wardrobe.

She's totally rocking it. So can I.
Image source: www.bicycleapparel.com

Before I bought my bicycle, this was a major concern for me. I knew I didn't want to shift my entire wardrobe to fit into a cycling lifestyle, especially if I wanted to use my bike for more than recreation. I wanted to maintain the way I dressed while I made this slow lifestyle transition and I knew that for it to be successful, it had to be something I could keep up in the long run--and I'd only be able to keep it up if I didn't have to worry about what I was wearing every time I wanted to hop on my bike and go.

Image source: www.bidorbuy.co.za

I'm hardly the first person to think this way. There is a positive trend towards utility cycling that involves riders being able to commute to work without having to hike up their pant legs, or cycle in their "bike clothes" and then have to change into their work clothes upon arrival at work. Bikes conducive to utility cycling feature such wonders as fenders, mudflaps, chain guards (sometimes full chain cases) and dressguards/coat guards. These features prevent your clothes from getting dirty and from long coattails and skirts from getting caught in the spokes of your rear wheel.

Image source: www.citygirlrides.blogspot.com

Dutch bicycles are paragons in this respect. These features are less common on North American bicycles though many manufacturers and bike shops have quickly caught on and are regularly importing Dutch bicycles (or designing their own) for North American riders, making them widely available for people who want to ride their bikes for transportation and not simply for recreation.

As I explained in this post, a Dutch bike is a hefty investment and as a novice cyclist, purchasing a vintage bicycle made in the 70s and upgrading it as needed was a more reasonable choice for me. One necessary element my bicycle was missing was a dress guard. Although they look very pretty on bikes, my desire for one was purely out of necessity (the looks were just a nice bonus!). Lovely Bicycle did a fantastic outline of their purpose and function in this post. I tried finding ready-made dress guards that I could purchase and snap onto my bike, but this proved too difficult. There are a few DIY tutorials on how to do this yourself, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

See this post to see how it turned out!

Over to the Dark Side: E-reader convert?

Well, I've done it. After a whirlwind week of research, I purchased an e-reader. Believe me, I never thought this would happen. I love the tactile experience of reading an actual book: the dust-musky smell of well worn pages, the soft pencil strokes of age-old marginalia, the scrape of page against page, the crack of a brand new spine--I could go on forever; nothing can replace it.

My decision to get an e-reader was a quick, easy one. There wasn't any of the expected hemming and hawing over whether or not it was a good idea. I was actually surprised it wasn't more dramatic.

After all, I've never been a proponent of bookless libraries, have never bought into the idea that the print medium is a dying culture that will soon be replaced by the snappy pixels of an electronic world, and I've always been very resistant to this overexcited desire to giddily embrace a world where real, solid books don't exist.

But while all this is true, I tried not to view the electronic world of books as a direct threat to the world of real books that I love.

With the e-reader I just thought, why not? It's an alternative platform that makes thousands of books easily accessible. I can borrow e-books from the library, access a bunch of free e-books (many of which are lovely classics) from booksellers, and if I want to, purchase an e-book for a bit cheaper than I would an actual copy. There was just something about having a device that would let me press a button and magically have a book appear that was exciting. Poof! There it is.

What's more, I didn't want to ignore something that had become an important part of the reading, writing, and publishing world where I function as an active citizen. There are many reasons why this electronic strand of the book world has become mainstream. I don't think it's just a fancy trend; it's become an integral part of the system, a venue for accessibility and the dissemination of reading material to anyone, anywhere.

But then why, as I stood at my local bookstore toying with my e-reader, did I start to feel a little guilty?

Because honestly, as much as it is exciting, there is also something disturbing about the possibility of having books appear and disappear with the click of a button. Where do pixels go when they die? There's the sense that unless a book is a book--something solid that I can hold in my hands--it can be easily eliminated. Poof! It's gone. As if it never existed. A physical object denotes a sense of reality, a presence that cannot be denied. But, words in electronic form appear and disappear, are edited and re-edited, cut and pasted, rearranged to be anything. The possibilities are only limited by our imaginations and how far we are willing to go.

I know that with certain works, I'm more likely to purchase the actual book instead of the e-version simply because I want to actually have it. So far, I don't feel that any of the books I've started to read on my e-reader are mine. I'm enjoying the stories I've immersed myself in, but like with any electronic document on my computer, these are still words on a screen. There's a safe distance between me and the book and I haven't yet made a personal connection with the book as an object. There are no folded pages, rumpled covers, or hurried notes along the margins. It's all so scrupulously clean. With no cracked spines, how do I leave my mark behind? If I can't pass a book on to a friend, or thumb through the pages of an old favourite, how do I analyze my relationship with the book? Do we have a relationship at all?

We do; albeit, it's a slightly different one. I think of e-readers, e-books, and all this electronic book paraphernalia as a supplement and not a replacement. It is simply another way to access the world of books, an exciting new dimension that contributes to book culture and can elevate the way we interact with books.

And that's key--the interaction. I purchased my e-reader to discover a new way of connecting with books. What perhaps, does an e-reader offer that a real book doesn't? Do my reading statistics--knowing how fast or how often I read, what time of day I'm more inclined to read, or how many books I've finished--make for a valuable reading experience? Do reading awards--an electronic badge for starting an e-library, for finishing a book, for electronically highlighting a passage--do these make a difference? What happens when I only have the words and not the pages, the cardboard, and the glue? How does my relationship with books, these beloved objects, change?

In the end, it's the words that matter. While the physicality of a book will provide a sensuous experience, it's the words that I'm drinking in. I'm far from replacing one with the other. I'm vying for a healthy marriage between the two. Whether I get the same level of pleasure with an e-book as I do with a real one is yet to be seen and though at times I'm doubtful, I'm willing to give it a good chance.

Images: Kobo e-reader from TechWorld; Kindle e-reader images are both from Larry Page; old volumes of well worn books from extended epiphany.