The Death of the Book?

One of my favorite shows, MeTV's  Collector's Call, recently featured a former Playboy centerfold who collected stellar examples of first editions and children's books, including fine examples of Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland.  It's fitting, in a way, that this amazing woman was a centerfold; after all, Hugh Hefner was the man who gave Ray Bradbury his start, publishing one version of Fahrenheit 451, a prophetic book about loving books, in Playboy.  I think it was in the first edition.

Photo by author, courtesy Vintage Rose Antiques.

We seem to be fascinated with books, even as we no longer buy, read, keep them.   Secrets of the Dead tonight dealt with a magnificent forgery of a book by Galileo.  It stumped experts allover the world.  Someone must care enough for books, rare ones at least, to want to forge them.  It must be a successful trade somewhere. Even as more people recycle their books to buy an e-reader of some kind, more books seem to crop up at yard sales.  Free little libraries are popping up all over our neighborhoods.  The concept is simple; borrow a book, and leave a book in its place.

Truly, I admit to being a bibliophile.  My mother taught me never to throw away a book [and never to split an infinitive; you'll notice I did not ].I've rescued books that were burned and water damaged, made covers, built shelves, and moved libraries.  I moved two libraries from my old school; a 4000 volume law library, and another 1200 or so volumes from the general library.  They were there for the taking; no one wanted them.  Everything was digital, online, whatever.

It pains me to see old law books torn part for scrapbooking projects; I supposed I should be grateful they are used for something.  They are not out of date; you can check on Shepard's and other citation services whether the cases within their pages are up to date or have been overruled on some point. I hate it when books are torn apart for their illustrations, which are later sold individually.  I love collage and scrapbooking, but I wont' cut up my books.  The landmark cases amid the pages of old law books are still good law, cases like Furman v. Georgia, Brown v. Board of Education, and Marbury v. Madison.  This isn't a law review article, or I would show off my knowledge of legal citation and tell you where to find them.

I've talked to surveyors and cartographers who search out old atlases and stats books; much of the knowledge they hold is not on The Net; it can't really be put there.  They serve as a comparison and stepping stone for other research.

Actually, I'm never happier than in a library.   I sent many books overseas, and arranged for others to have good homes, but I admit I kept a lot of them.   I use them.  Serious scholarly research still requires books, not websites.

I'm with Corey Doctorow and others who avidly load their Kindles, read online, thrive on their Google Library, but I have my books, too.  Many are beautiful, works of art in themselves.  Antique children's books, miniatures, 260 year old Bibles  Like The Book Thief's heroine, I suppose I never get enough.