On rainy days, snowy days, sunny days—really any day—one of my favorite places to be is a bookstore. I can spend hours wandering around, reading, looking, smelling (yeah ,I’m one of those weirdos who smells books), and simply getting lost in the words that float all around me. I grew up on books, I got lost in the pages of adventure, heartbreak and suspense. I fall in love with characters and also hate some. I’ve learned many lessons from books, both good and bad. To me, I lose the magic when I power on a device. Yes, I have tried it. I liked the convenience, the cost of eBooks, and even the ability to carry hundreds of books with me. But I still felt that I was missing something. And so I made a list of one of my favorite pastimes.
10 things a digital book lacks:
- New (and old) book smell, because really, there’s nothing better
- Favorite pages marked by dog ears
- Hand written notes in the margins
- Pages stained by tears (happy and sad)
- Taped pages from desperate owners who cannot part with their favorite love story
- Lifelong battery
- Your name written in the top left hand corner of the cover
- Your favorite words marked by yellow highlighter
- The ability to be passed along, you can physically see the enjoyment in a printed book from years of wear and tear by each owner who has read it
- The original intention of how books were meant to be enjoyed, with ink and paper
Now you tell me, will an eBook ever be able to beat print? Sometimes there are things that technology just can’t conquer, like the classics.
