Bookish

Somebody recently called me a Luddite. Yes, it is true, I don't own a great deal of technology. My computer is a desktop and my phone has no Internet. At knit night, I am one of the few knitters with her pattern on paper instead of a tablet. My camera is no big deal. It's not that I hate technology. Much of my lack of it is simply due to economics. Also, my needs are simple and I get by with what I have. (Though I would love a better camera!)

There is one area, however where I have consciously decided to reject technological advance. People keep telling me that since I read so much, I should get an E-reader. They describe how the device can carry so many books, and is very portable. I understand.

Yet, I am one of those readers who just loves paper. I love turning pages, flipping back and forth, spreading 2 or 3 books on the same subject on the table in front of me and reading them simultaneously. I spend many Saturdays at the Reference Library, sitting on the floor of my favourite sections, dipping in and out of the contents of an entire shelf. Or I call up old volumes from the stacks.  This one, A Few Figs From Thistles is available on line. I could have read it on my screen at home. Had I done so, I would have missed the thrill of reading about the events of it's 1922 printing in Edna St. Vincent Millay's biography, while holding one of those actual volumes in my other hand. I never would have known that this particular edition was withdrawn from the holdings of The Kirksville MO State Teacher's College for unknown reasons and then somehow made its way to Toronto in 1981 when TPL was still called Metropolitan Toronto Library. This is exciting stuff, right? 
Yes, I am cool.