Flipping through the pages...

The Hardcover

I just received a copy of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The opening line seems promising: 

"Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable"

My book list keeps piling up and because they're all electronic books, I find it hard to figure out what to read first. You can't peruse through your Kindle books the same way you can through the hard copies; you can't look for interesting chapters or take a one-second peek at the end to gage what you're getting yourself in for. I find it hard to decide which book to read without my computer present to make pro-and-con lists.

And so the pile keeps building but I haven't been reading. 

I love my Kindle, god knows I do. I love highlighting my favorite passages and having all my favorite books with me everywhere I go. I love the e-ink technology and the instant dictionary. But it feels so limiting when all I want to do when I finish a book is go flip through the pages and re-read all my favorite parts. Clicking through your bookmarks just isn't the same. 

So today this old, used, library-version of some highly-rated, young adult stories has made it's way to me and I can't do anything but read it, because this book in my hands- the feel, the smell, the weight-
 it feels like home.  

Someday, they will perfect the ebook, they will simulate everything I love about real books and that will be the end to this debate, but until that day a hardcover will always take all.