on Books

A dream from my childhood has always been to own a personal library like those great English manors depicted in mystery movies.  You know, the ones with a brass rail and ladder contraption, with a second level of book shelves.  Rows and columns of beautiful leather bound volumes.

When we first moved into our home, the little hexagonal room off the master bedroom became my small version of this fantasy.  We lined it with bookshelves and I filled them with my book collection, amassed over the course of my life.  Many of the shelves also featured interesting book ends and tiny knick-knacks.  Then we started our design business and all those books were replaced with catalogs and material sample binders.  The books were packed into boxes and stored in the attic or the spare bedroom closet, never to be seen again.

As the world quickly begins to embrace the electronic-book, or e-book, I lament the decline of the hard bound volume.  I'm realistic though; I recently reread Treasure Island because it came pre-loaded on my Android phone.  A recent Kindle commercial depicted a woman who likes her e-books and a man, stuck in the past, refusing to let go of his antiquated printed medium.  He complains that he likes his traditional books because he can dog-ear a page. The woman shows she has that same ability in virtual space.

I miss the smell and fell of the pages, but I must admit it can sometimes be very difficult to read a book in bed, the one place I have always read.  Perhaps I will begin reading e-novels instead.  Does nostalgia trump the ease of technology?

Amazon seems to think it does.  The online giant has quickly cut into the profits of brick-and-mortar stores like Barnes & Noble and Borders.  The new generation doesn't find hanging out in a book store all day as satisfying as the older generations.  However, as the big book stores continue to decline, Amazon has made a rather strange announcement.  They are going to begin building Amazon stores, real brick-and-mortar locations to sell their wares.  Of course Amazon has branched out to sell all sorts of merchandise, not just books, but they are still their mainstay items.

Is this move counter-intuitive?  Amazon claims 'more of the company's products would benefit from hands-on interaction with shoppers'.  Sounds like a bookstore to me.