What do you think of this statement?
"When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books."
This was a comment from the headmaster of Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts and the chief promoter of their library going bookless.
Since the advent of the Internet, comments like these have abounded. And, yet, like The Dude, the book abides (If you don't get this reference, see "The Big Lebowski").
No Kindle for me. Part of the pleasure of reading is holding the book, looking at the cover, turning the pages and savoring what is to come. I will never forget in the movie "Fahrenheit 451" when Guy, the hero, who felt books had no value and whose job as a fireman was to burn books, finally reads one for the first time. He opens the book and reads aloud everything on the preface, including the publication date and other things one would not normally read. But that is probably what someone would do who had never read a book before. I have never forgotten that moment. That one moment encapsulized what a voracious reader feels before embarking on the journey that the book in hand offers. No computer can do that.
No matter how difficult the economic times, you can get away from your troubles and find pleasure in books -- and they are free at the library!
So what do you think? Will the book go the way of the Dodo?
Share your stories.
1 comment:
Well maybe but since many things that people say do not occur I am not convinced. And example: I was told in the mid 1980's that by the mid 1990's Computers to create a "paperless society". Here we are in 2009 and we use more paper than ever to print things off computers. No one writes down an address or phone number -we print it. We print everything big and small. Not paperless we are papermore. -- Di
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