The Lost Books of my Youth

One of the many overloaded
bookshelves in our home.

Lately I've been spending a great deal of time thinking about books.  I know, this is hardly a surprise to those of you who know me or read this blog on a regular basis.  But I'm not just talking about writing books, or even reading books.  I'm talking about a collection of books I used to have when I was younger.  Let me explain.

When I was a kid, oh, like thirty-plus years ago, I can remember when it really started for me.  I was at a flea market, a really big one.  And as I walked past tables and tables of old farm implements (you know, the really scary looking ones that are used in all the slasher flicks) and used sewing machines and vintage toys and rusted old signs (this was before all the signs were reproductions), I came to a stop at a table with a bunch of old books mashed together with their spines facing the open sky.  It was a wonderful sight and I forgot all about the other vendors and settled in to look at those old tomes.

All of them were hardbacks.  I don't think any of them had dust jackets on them.  Just plenty of beautiful cloth covered books with titles imprinted on their spines.  Often the front cover was blank; a soft blue, or stark green, or even a faded red.

I don't remember how it was I had money in my pocket, but I must have had some.  Perhaps my parents had given me a few dollars to spend that day.  I was too young to be earning anything at that time.  But I was so entranced by these books, and they were so cheap, that I bought a good number of them.  An old Ben-Hur was among them; with a solid dark green cover, it had a fancy illustration on the front cover made of gold an silver leafing.  I knew it wasn't real, but it was dazzling to see.  A great big Robert Louis Stevenson volume of The Wrecker, which I'd never heard of, and a strange little book entitled The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.  I'd never heard of that before either.  I certainly had no idea what an autocrat was.  Why I picked that book I cannot remember.  But pick it I did, and it became a mysterious member of my collection.

Over time, I began to seek out more old books; a great big blue Gone With the Wind, a Vanity Fair by Thackeray, a slim volume of W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, and other odd, strange, and delightful titles.  I read a great deal back then, but I rarely read much of the hardback collection I had gathered.  The edition of The Wrecker couldn't be read.  Many of the pages had not been cut.  This fascinated me, I had no idea books were printed like this, and I often pulled it out to try and peer in between the pages that were uncut.  This was always a challenge.

Eventually I amassed about forty or fifty hardbacks that became something of a burden on my family.  We moved more often than the average family, and boxing up and moving these books was a bit of a problem.  Lugging boxes of hardback books up and down stairs is a memorable experience, to say the least.  However, I don't recall my parents complaining about them, and they stayed with me until I married.  I still regret the fact that I loaded most of them up and sold them to a used books store one day so that we could make the rent payment early in our marriage.  I really didn't get much for them.  Pretty much nothing at all.  Of the ones I held onto, most of them were ruined when hurricane Rita blew through the back of our home in 2005.  They ended up in a pile of wet pulpy trash on the side of the road.

The survivors.  By the way, whatever happened to Thomas B. Costain?
When I was a kid, there was always a wide selection of his books
in every library.  I suppose he was the James Patterson of his day.

Searching the stacks and stacks of books I've accumulated since I married, I can only find a few of the original (and to me, infamous!) hardbacks.  I still have that Gone With the Wind, and a rather gaudy looking The Silver Chalice.  One of my favorites from that collection, and one of the few that had a dust cover, was Thomas B. Costain's The Tontine.  (This was the first of two volumes.  I never did own the second, though I read them both.  I can't remember where I finally found the second volume.  Must have been a library, since I didn't buy it.  After all these years, I can finally buy the second volume for a few dollars on Amazon Marketplace.  Maybe one day I will.)

I read all three of those books.  Of the others I had collected, I read The Moon is Down by Steinbeck (a wonderful book!), and maybe only one or two others.  I read a little from the collected works of Washington Irving.  But many of these old books were so old, the pages were brittle and I was not too keen on ruining them.  It was as if I had become like the Eloi, from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, existing side by side with the great literature of mankind yet never reading them as they slowly decayed into nothingness.  Actually, a number of them I actually did read, but I used volumes from the library so as not to cause undue damage to the older hardbacks.

I have a newer collection of books now; hundreds of books are scattered throughout my house.  I don't move anymore.  Or haven't for some time, which is a good thing considering the total weight of books in our house.  A little more than half of the books I have now I've read.  There are a few that I haven't read and will never read.  But getting rid of them is hard.  I still bear the scars from that trip to the used bookseller to pay the rent.  But I still enjoy looking over the titles, some with fond memories of what I'd read in them, some with the excitement of not yet knowing what is in them.

Most of my reading is done on a Kindle now.  I can carry all of the books I've ever read and ever want to read in that one, slim digital device.  Yet I'll always cherish the books that clutter up the house.  They're important.  I expect my grandchildren to grow up around them, occasionally pulling them out and paging through them with curiosity and wonder.  I'd be disappointed if they didn't.  They were always here for my kids, and I know it had an effect on them.  You can't grow up in a house full of books and not be influenced by them.

Now I've got to go finish the latest book I'm reading.  I've collected over thirty titles on my Kindle that I have yet to read and I really need to get to them.  So many books...so little time.

My View of the Kindle Paperwhite 3G

My first Kindle, a 4th Generation style.

I was blessed enough to not only receive a Kindle last year for Christmas, but my lovely bride was sweet enough to buy me another one this Christmas with the release of the brand new Paperwhite edition.  As a fan of the Amazon Kindle system, I thought I would let the world know how the two compare.

First of all, let me give a few highlights on the old Kindle, which is not that old, in fact, but we'll call it that for simplicity's sake.  (If I were to be technical, I'd call it the Fourth Generation Kindle, which is the designation it has, and it has already been replaced by a fifth generation at the end of 2012.)
  My old Kindle was smaller and lighter than any Kindle up to that point, and though it does not have any sort of screen light, it's e-ink display makes reading easy as long as you have a light source.  Though the screen is not a touchscreen, it is pretty easy to navigate with the buttons on the front of the machine, and turning pages with the side bars is quite simple.  (You can go forward and backward from either the left or right side.)  The side bars, in fact, make it possible to hold the Kindle and turn the pages with just one hand.  Also, being so light, you can encase it in a nice cover and it is still light enough to hold with one hand for an extensive time.
  About the only complaints I had with it was that fact that it was hard to read in low light, and it tended to attract a glare more often than it should have.  Aside from that, I loved using it as much as possible.

Dinah, browsing books on the Kindle Paperwhite.

Then along came the Kindle Paperwhite.  Their new built-in light technology enables the reader to be able to see the display in any sort of light, including a room with no light.  The amount of light is customizable, so you can dim the light in the dark, which makes it much easier on the eyes.  In a bright room, you might want to turn up the built-in light, which increases the contrast to make reading an effortless activity.
  This new Kindle is definitely heavier, though it is only one and a half ounces heavier.  This does become noticeable the longer you hold it.  However, for average reading times, you won't really feel the difference.  The battery, however, powering the light, does run out much more quickly.  My old Kindle only needed to be charged once every other week or so.  The Paperwhite has needed charging about every third day of heavy use.  In addition to these changes, the Paperwhite is slightly larger, and needed a new cover to replace the cover I used for the old Kindle.  However, with the new cover, you get the updated feature of the device turning off and on as you open and close the cover.  (Just to help anyone who is switching from an older Kindle to Paperwhite, I will add this:  My Paperwhite fit into my old Kindle case (a tight fit), but the sensors on the new Kindle thought it was in a closed cover, so it would turn the Kindle off, and I could not turn it back on until I slid it out of the cover.  The sensor for the Paperwhite is well hidden, and the new covers are designed to work with the on/off sensors.  Now that I have the new cover (a nice faux leather one from Moko, which I think is the best for the price) I love this open/close--on/off feature.  Love it.

Though slightly larger, the Paperwhite can still
be held in one hand.

  I am a bit of a Luddite when it comes to touchscreens.  I'm too pessimistic that they'll scratch, or quit working, or whatever.  So far, I've found the touchscreen not too hard to keep clean, and it responds well to my fat fingers.  I am still not comfortable typing in a full review on a book when I'm finished with it.  To say more than a few words, I wait until I'm at a computer to knock out the review.  Along with the snazzy touchscreen, this Paperwhite has a 3G connection, which works well, with one caveat: it only works on the Amazon site, for book shopping.  The experimental browser that works on the wifi when one is in range, will not work on the 3G.  I guess Amazon didn't want people tying up their bandwidth with FaceBook use.  You know, I think I see their point.  Anyway, I chose the 3G since I am not always within range of a WiFi connection.  So far, it has worked flawlessly.  It also switched from WiFi to 3G as needed, depending on what is in range, without my ever having to help it out.  Smart little doo-hicky.
  One more thought on the touchscreen.  I really wish Amazon had left the side bars on the device for page turning.  I don't like the need to tap the screen every time I turn the page.  I hope Amazon is listening about that.  I'd love to see a Paperwhite with the side bars re-installed   Just my preference.  I am, however, getting better at lightly tapping the screen as needed.  I am still not sure of the best cleaning methods for it.  If anyone has a suggestion I'll be happy to hear it.

Yes, when you really need it to, Paperwhite will
translate from English to Chinese.  

  Despite the fresh, whiz-bang features of the newer Paperwhite, I was surprised to find that navigating the books is not as effortless as the old Kindle.  There are a few navigation features that have either disappeared of I have just not figured them out yet.  One of them is the farthest point read button on the old Kindle menu.  On the newer one, if says synch to farthest point read, but when you hit this button, it wants to connect with the WiFi and consult with the Mothership before telling you where you were.  Maybe I just need to change a setting on that, but for now I have not figured out what that setting would be.
  But nothing can beat the ability to read in the dark.  Man, that is awesome.  This is important for me since I like to read before I sleep while my bride does not.  She prefers to go right to sleep and my light generally bothers her.  With the Paperwhite, which can be dialed down so as not to glow enough to light the room, I can read far into the night.  Whether or not I do so on nights I should be sleeping for work the next day is a personal problem I have to work out myself.  In this, Amazon cannot help.
  If you are trying to decide on whether to buy a Paperwhite or a Kindle Fire I cannot be of much help.  I've steered clear of the Fire, for several reasons, most prominent of which is the fact that I want a Kindle for reading, and a Fire will be too tempting a distraction.  I am afraid I'd end up on Facebook getting entangled in political arguments instead of reading.  This I do not need.

I think the Kindle Paperwhite can stand on its own, though
in this shot it is, in fact, leaning on a real book for support.

  And once again, I'll address the argument that book lovers like to use against the Kindle.  Yes, I know, we book lovers like to hold a book in our hands, and smell the pages, and flip around in the book, and all those things we book lovers love to do.  However, the overwhelming convenience of being able to carry just about every book in the world with you in such a small package is something that cannot be ignored.  And with the 3G, if you can think of the book, or the author, you can search the massive lists on Amazon and download the book from anywhere, at anytime.  This benefit is hard to ignore.  In addition, the Kindle allows you to instantly check the definitions of words you don't know, and even more amazingly, it will translate most languages for you.  You can highlight passages you like, and you can also upload them to share with friends on Facebook, along with your own note on the passage.  These tools allow you to interact with a text in ways we never could before.
  But, if all you are interested in is the smell of your book, I understand.  (I don't, really, but I know enough not to argue with a book lover about the value of the smell of a good book.  Hey, I used to walk the stacks at my dad's seminary for that very thing.  So I get the smell thing, okay?)
Click on the link below to get your Kindle Paperwhite.  If you already have one, check out the case I've listed below.  It is perfect for the Paperwhite, and it comes in ten different colors.

My View of a Book I've Never Seen

   It started out like this: I was online, reading a review of a book on Bloomberg.com. The book was about the building and design of our American Highway systems. The book, The Big Roads: The Untold Story of theEngineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways,by Earl Swift, was right up my alley. Or maybe right up my road. You see, I was sort of raised on the Interstates and U.S. Highways. For a time, when I was a kid, we didn't have a house; we simply lived in a van, then a motor home, while traveling from town to town. That was it. On a day-to-day basis, I was able to sit at a window and watch the Interstate roll by. Oddly enough...I loved it. And so, after reading the review, I knew I wanted to read this book.  I mean, it was a book about the design and construction of my boyhood backyard. Now, I was not at home at the time I read the review, so I emailed the name of the book to myself, so that when I arrived at home I could look it up on Amazon and buy it. What troubled me, when I did find it, was that it was too close to Christmas to buy it with a clean conscience. I really should have waited in case someone might buy it for me. So I added it to my Christmas wish list, and waited.

   I love books about building things. I read a book on the building of the Erie Canal, and one about the building of the German Dreadnoughts. I once read a book about the design and publication of the King James Bible. These kinds of things fascinate me. Mainly because I could never be the guy who says...hey, I think we could dig a tunnel from England to France. Okay, I might think of it, but I'd have no idea how to go about it. I mean, I still think that when my wife and I climb aboard that Air France flight to Paris this Spring, it will be sheer magic that gets that big, heavy, lump of metal off the ground and into the air. Magic! That being the case, I love to watch Modern Marvels, and I enjoy reading these types of books.

   Now, let's ignore all the patient waiting I endured, and certainly ignore the shaking and nervous ticks I performed as I forced myself to sit still and not click that buy-with-one-click button on Amazon. Suffice to say, I was a good boy and did not spend money on myself so close to Christmas.

   The good news is that Simon, my youngest, came through for me. He bought me the book, and it was nicely wrapped and waiting for me under the tree. Only the book was not really under the tree. I received a picture of it. You see, my son was fully aware that my wife had bought me a Kindle reader for Christmas. So, with great joy, I downloaded my new book.

   Within two days I was finished. Cover to cover. The book was a complete marvel. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in major engineering feats as well as a nod to the nostalgic. I could not have enjoyed it any more than I did. It blew the scale away.

   But here is the part that has me taking a step back in deep thought:

   At no time had I ever held this book. I'd never hefted it with one hand to test its weight. Never flipped the pages to take in the new-book smell while checking to see just how many pictures were in it. I had never set it on the table in front of me where I could look upon it with that simple joy that comes from buying a new book and seeing it in your home. Surely this meant I had not been able to enjoy it like I would have if I had physically bought the book.

   Maybe. That would be hard to prove. Difficult to disprove. I'll leave wiggle room here.

   However, I do know for certain that I loved the book. I couldn't put it down. It was a real page-turner. I was sorry to reach the end of the book. Even though it had no pages, and it was not a book, it fit all of these clichés. But at no time did I feel like I was missing anything. This was a surprise, since I was a scoffer when I first heard of the Kindles. I'm an old book-lover who just can't get enough of that old book smell. I love to hold a book in my hands, and all that sentimental hoo-hah. I mean, since I was about nine I've collected books. I was really proud of my old, dusty, hardback edition of Oliver Wendell Holmes The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table even though I had no idea what an autocrat could possibly be. It didn't matter. I had the book. I would often pull it off the shelf and page through it, despite the fact that I couldn't follow any of what was being said. Then I'd gently replace it, my eyes shining with admiration for it. I'm that kind of book lover.

   From time to time, I like to sit and look at the books on my shelves. I read the spines, and remind myself just how great or not so great each book was to read. They are like old friends to me. Will it be the same for this new book I downloaded? I don't know. Perhaps I'll begin to browse my list of books that I've read on Goodreads as a substitute for looking over my bookshelves.

   It is too early to tell. But for now, I can say that I think I'll transition into this brave new world of digital books without too much discomfort. Who knows? Perhaps I'll never buy another physical book again. I doubt it.

   I do worry about what I'd do if my Kindle died and I had no way to power it back up.

   That would transform this sci-fi story into a horror story.