May I Borrow a Battery? My Book is Dead

I went on Amazon.com one day recently to check out something or other, and the opening page, instead of giving me the usual recommendations by categories, was almost completely given over to introducing me to a new product called the Amazon.com "Kindle." It's basically the company's version of an electronic book reader, which they say they've been working on for three years to perfect.

Explaining the genesis of his company's new product, Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said, "The booklover in me often has asked the nerd in me, 'Is there a way to get the emotions and experiences I love from books, but combined with the possibilities of advanced technology? Can something as evolved as the book be improved?"

Now, maybe I'm just hopelessly mired in the technological mud, but when I sit down in a nice chair with a good book (the pulpy-paged type), one thing I surely never think about is how to transform the book in my hands into another electronic gizmo, which I must pamper and recharge and repair when it gets broken. I'm quite happy, thank you, to just let The Brothers Karamazov be The Brothers Karamazov, and not lament the fact that any book I flip the pages of can't also get me stock quotes, show YouTube videos or allow me to spend more money with Amazon.com. This ability may represent an "improvement" to Mr. Bezos, but I beg to differ.

I'm glad that books have not really "evolved" since their invention, despite Mr. Bezos's claim. Yes, they're a bit smaller and made of different materials than they were in Gutenberg's day, and we no longer have to fashion them entirely by hand or crank them out one at a time on a crude press, but the essence of a book is still the same -- pages of text between two covers, pages turned one at a time and enjoyed at the leisure and pace of the reader.

I don't know how many times I've seen people come out with these "electronic book" gizmos, announcing (or implying) that the printed book is on its long-overdue deathbed, only to have the gizmo, and not books, soon bite the dust.

Then again, maybe an electronic book is inevitable. Maybe there's so many people these days whose attention spans have been worn down to the nub by a steady dose of TV and DVDs and video games that they won't -- or can't -- read a book without some sort of electronic diversion handy. But then again, I don't think those people are the ones truly longing for a good book to savor. Let's face it, the target audience for any new electronic book is not likely to go out and download Dostoevsky or Dickens or Joyce to read on it.

I am content to get drenched as I leave my finger in the dike. Invent what you will, and while I applaud your technical genius and even let out a "hey, cool!" every now and then, I'm happy to keep my books just as they've always been.

Turning a Page in Life

Isn’t it entirely possible that each of us harbors some sort of fantasy involving “leaving it all behind,” “it” being the secure job, the 9-to-5 existence, the totally tethered life, and heading out for unknown places as a romantic, risk-taking, free-spirited vagabond?

I think so, and recently I met someone who not only acknowledges those fantasies, but is doing something tangible to make them happen. It was at our public library’s used book sale, where I was working. I was in the “Hold” area, where people who fill bags full of dog-eared books they want to buy can temporarily stash them so that they can go out on the floor again, arms free, to buy even more.

When I got to the Hold area to begin my shift, I noticed about 20 bags full of books marked “T.Baker,” and wondered who this person was. I finally met her when she came to drop off another bag, and over the next few hours (as she dropped off probably 10 more bags) I got to know a bit more about why she was seemingly so book-crazy. She was in her late 20s or early 30s, and had driven in from a city more than three hours away to attend the sale.

When I first spoke to her, I told her I had come up with three possible theories to explain her mounting pile of bags:

1. She was preparing to move to an incredibly remote part of Alaska, where the nearest library, post office or Fedex station was a two-week journey by kayak and dogsled;

2. She was an insatiable reader, a literary nymphomaniac, devouring books like a drug addict pops pills; or

3. She was buying stock for a bookstore.

It turns out that the third scenario was correct, but the woman was not just dutifully buying stock to throw on the shelves of some dusty strip center bookstore. No, she has a full-time day job in a big city at a big corporation (which she despises) and knows that she is scheduled to get laid off in 2008. I’ve never met someone so happy (and eager!) to get canned.

Preparing for unemployment, she has started an online used bookselling business in her spare time, selling books through both eBay and amazon.com. That’s why she was buying all these books (more than a thousand dollar’s worth by the end). When she finally loses her steady job, she intends to sell used books full time, traveling across the country, hitting library used book sales, thrift stores and garage sales to buy new stock. She won’t get rich, she knows, but she says she loves books, and travel, and this is a dream of hers to combine those two. And, in her new career, every Ding Dong or Whopper or convenience store munchie she buys while traveling will be tax deductible.

I have to say, the idea of being able to head out on the road, at your own pace and on your own timetable, and go wherever your heart leads you, is a tempting one for me. Of course, if I tried to imagine the details of her situation at all, the picture gets a bit less rosy – the bad food, the smelly stores and rude people, living lean when sales are down, sleeping in cheap motels or even the back seat of the car to save money, being alone at night in yet another small town – some or all of that might indeed be ahead of her, but she isn’t worried about that now. She’s gloriously happy and excited by life, and it shows.

Given the chance, and even forced to do so by circumstance, wouldn’t we all be willing to leave behind the computer screen and the telephone and day planner and interoffice memos, and just fly away singing? At least on some days I think we just might, and damn the odds.

Acting My Age

Found a face-slapping quote today...

"Forty-five is the age of recklessness for many men, as if in defiance of the decay and death waiting with open arms at the sinister valley at the bottom of the inevitable hill."

--Joseph Conrad, Victory

Good morning, sunshine! Care to guess how old I am? Well, let's just say that after reading this, I'm inspired to drag my decaying carcass out into the middle of Interstate 35 and forget about waiting for the sinister valley. I'll just let a sinister Kenworth do me in.

Sheesh, now I see why this guy wrote a book called Heart of Darkness. I'll bet he was fun on a date.

And you know the funny thing? Old Joe lived to be 67 years old, so he had 22 years to mope around thinking he was a rotting bag of peat moss heading for Potter's Field.

I'm 45, and I'm here to say it's not bad, not bad at all.

POSTSCRIPT: Man, what was it with all of these turn-of-the-20th century writers? Couldn't they handle middle age with a little more grace?

Here's what one of my favorite humorists, Mark Twain, had to say on my desk calendar's daily quote today:

"The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity."

Gee, no wonder Huck left in the raft.