The piles of words rise like mountains, obstacles to climbing out of the bed, or reasons to linger and read my way out. Pausing to touch the jacket elicits the temptation to do more.. to read it, to lose myself in the wranglings of another mind, another place, an alternate time.
I can't wrap myself around a digital book in the same way- can't pause in the margin to inhale the scent of printed words, can't dog-ear my way through places so marvelous that the corners rub off. For one who prides herself on adaptation, the digital book barrier remains impermeable.
Yes, pixellation engages the sense with its brilliant colors and virtual reality. But it's the physical reality of books that I can't trade in for the cool mod version. (Anyone who reads this blog already knows I'm not cool or hip or anything that lends itself to fashion.) What I want is the experience of reading in a way that is sensual, rather than merely sense-driven. I want to touch the pages, run my fingers over the coffee cup marks, find a reason for that mysterious marginalia I must have written long ago. My relationship with the text is tangled up in my relationship with the physical body of the book. It's complicated.
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often amassing a large and specialized collection. Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they adore- only to collect the knowledge of their existence.
But there is a sense in which bibliophilia blurs with bibliomania, which wikipedia defines as "an obsessive-compulsive disorder, involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved".
Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily". Wikipedia also claims that the Library of Congree does not use the term "bibliophily," but rather refers to its readers as either book collectors or "bibliomaniacs". Perhaps I am a bibliomaniac rather than a bibliophile- it's hard for me to discern the difference. I love books- love love love them. Ultimately, the moniker used to describe my fascination will probably change sooner than my relationship with the books themselves. Now, back to stacking and sorting and, yes, savoring....
