Post 2: What is a book?

 

A book is everything that comes with reading a story- the way the pages look, the font and spacing of the writing, the story that goes inside the tangible pages, and the message that could stay with you for a long time. While I agree with Joe Meno that the actual message of the story does not change depending on what kind of book you may have, I think there is something you are missing if you use electronic books. For me, the way the book is made, the color of the pages and the way they are made all add to the story and give a different feeling towards the story and the book that you can’t get using electronic books. Finding an old, used book with pages torn adds to the value of the story, especially if it has been passed down to you from another generation. You can’t see the torn pages or cover on an electronic book. A book gets its individuality from the way it is made and it loses this individuality when it looks like every other book on an electronic device.

I don’t completely agree with Victor LaValle when he makes fun of men or women spending a long time writing a novel and then the reading is holing “that essence in their hands”. Although I do see this as over dramatic, there is importance in holding the actual book in your hands. Regardless of books being mass produced, more effort and time goes into creating and designing an actual book than goes into sending an electronic version. This time and effort needed to create the book adds significance to the book; the significance may not be as big and obvious as the “essence” of the author’s hard work but rather something small.

 I am actually not entirely sure what Nancy Jo Sales means when she says that books “remind us that we exist; they show us how we have lived”. Although I agree with her that a book is just not the same if it is on an electronic devise, I am not sure how a book could remind us that we are exist/still living and how we have lived. I like the way Tom Piazza related books/e-books to democracy. Just because everything is the exact same (books on e-books) doesn’t necessarily mean you are democratizing the information.