Bookworm

I am what is known as a bookworm. In the evening or at my lunchtime break, I like to pull out whatever book I have and read for a bit. Note that I said that I like to pull out a book. It seems that more and more these days, the notion of a book is synonomous with terms like 8-track, cassette, and VHS. Things that today's youth would recognize only as some sort of object that our ancestors used to poke at with a pointy stick before fun and convenience were invented. Primitive things from the before time. Today's nerdy technological types might even say with some degree of dripping distaste that a tablet computer is a book, while they drool on their pocket protectors and bell-bottom slacks rambling on about gigabytes and go-anywhere convenience. However, I would argue that the dronings of a group of pimply faced, lactose-intolerant, D&D playing cretins accounts for nothing in my world. Let me tell you what a book is by using the old-timey definition of the word.

Book - a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.

You might even find it somewhat ironic that I looked up the definition of the word "book" in an actual book known as a dictionary. Note also that in the definition of the word, it explicitly says that a book is only a book if it is "fastened or bound together within covers". Thus a printed out stack of paper from a laser printer is not a book, it is a recycling project. Without a proper binding, something doesn't feel write to me ... errr ... feel right to me.

I think that part of the reason that I have never gotten into using an e-reader of any sort is that I stare at computers all day at work. The idea of relaxing with a computer during my down time does not make sense to me. In some ways it seems like a continuation of work. I am not sure why, but it gives me some degree of pleasure to see my bookmark moving forward through a book as I read. Plus I also think that there is some visceral tactile experience in the holding of a book that gives me pleasure. Then when I am done, I can slam the book shut in gleeful triumph, something that cannot be reproduced in an equivalent manner just by pressing a power button.