Who'd Have Thought...

I've never made any bones about it, I love books. I love the feel of them, the smell of them, ruffling the pages with my thumb, all of it. I started reading at a young age, encouraged by my mother, and unappreciated by a number of my teachers. The first book I ever read was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, when I was five. I didn't get much of the humor, back then, but I was able to figure out the 'slavespeak' that Twain used to describe the speach of black characters. Having been a high school English teacher who taught the book, I can tell you that it's more than high school juniors can do today.
To me, books always seemed like a doorway. All one had to do is open a book, and an entirely different world was available. It was a way to escape one's problems; to get away for a while. Sometimes, while reading, I've discovered new ways of looking at my problems, and actually solve some things.
Reading requires an imagination, otherwise it's just words on a page. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've told a student that authors go to great length to describe things, but it's just words on a page if the reader cannot "see" it in the mind. Students used to laugh at me, when they ask, "Where's the furthest place you've been from here?". I always answer, "Istanbul, on Earth, but I've been to Mars."
Okay, it's a hokie joke, but at age 12, I found my dad's stash of Edgar Rice Burroughs books, and through his Martian Series, I've seen what life might be like on the Red Planet, at least in my mind. It's sad, but kids are losing the ability to imagine. Sure, for a few years we let them play with their toys, using their imaginations to decide how to use the toy. Then, almost as soon as they can sit up and feed themselves, we stick a joystick in their hands, and start providing all of the images for them. Maybe it's not so much as kids are losing the ability as it is atropy; not having to use it, it becomes unusable.
When the Kindle first came out, I thought it was pretty cool, but I still wanted to have the actual book in-hand. I saw one while waiting at the hospital, and the woman who had it was really "hip" to the Kindle-thing. In retrospect, she had probably just gotten it... Not me, however, I wanted "the book," paper, binding, pages. As time wore on, though, and bookstores started closing; books got harder and harder to get, and I started thinking about getting a Kindle, or something like it.
Christmas, my wife, who received one herself, gave me a Kindle for a present. I had bought her Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln for hers, which I knew she was getting. I didn't expect mine, so it was a genuine surprize, and since it was registered on the same account, Killing Lincoln went over to my Kindle, too (score). I spent a short period of time getting a couple of favorites from the Free List, Les Miserable, and Twain's Roughing It, later that evening. Monday, I had to force myself to get out of Amazon, because I had downloaded about 2GB worth of classics, including some of the Martian Series.
I'm a fan. I think it's pretty cool to be able to sit down and have a choice of a good number of books to chose from. For the past two days, however, I've been spending time on Mars.