3 Reasons You Should Keep Physical Books
I am a product of endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them… (C. S. Lewis)
I love books, don’t you? I love how they smell, I love how they look. It’s hard for me to go into a bookstore and leave without purchasing a book. I love being able to order a book from Amazon and have it delivered to my doorstep the very next day. That’s pretty cool. But there’s nothing quite like browsing through a bookstore and finding a hidden gem. Netflix is nice, but there was something visceral, something comforting, about browsing the aisles of movies in an old Blockbuster. That being said, no one is really surprised that Blockbuster has gone the way of the fax machine…but books, books are another story. It’s great that we can download entire libraries onto our tablets, but books are about more than just the information they contain. Books are unique because of their physicality. If a book is reduced down to just the information it contains, that’s like reducing a great meal down to its recipe. A great meal is so much more than its recipe. A great meal is an experience. Here are three reasons why you should keep physical books.
1. Every book has a story.
That’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not talking about the information written by the author. I’m talking about the physical journey each book has taken before it arrived in your hands. Now, maybe you buy all your books brand new. Do you burn them after you’re finished reading them? I didn’t think so. They will live on. You will give them away. You will sell them in a garage sale. You will die and leave them to your kids. Somehow, some way, those books will find themselves in the hands of someone else, some time in the future. Have you ever bought a used book and wondered who owned it before? My imagination goes wild thinking about someone else, in another time, holding the book I hold in my hands, reading the same pages I am reading. It’s like going to the Colosseum or the Louvre knowing so many people in ages past have walked the same grounds. Ok, maybe it’s not exactly like that, but you get the point. The life of a book. Where has it been? Where is it going? Like a seed blowing in the wind. Who knows what great trees of wisdom will grow from wherever it lands?
2. The same book can be a different book at a different time in your life.
Do you think the same way you did ten years ago? I would hope not. Hopefully we are all growing and maturing in our thinking. That’s wisdom is it not? That’s why teenagers have to pay more for car insurance, right? They just think differently. I love keeping physical books, because I love to pick up a book and re-read it. It can be a completely different experience than the first time I read it. Different things will jump out at me. Things that struck me as significant the first time I read it, can be insignificant the next reading. Or perhaps, the Truth that molded me and shaped my thinking the first time, hits me hard in the face a second time, and reminds me that no matter how much time passes, some truths are absolute and unchanging, I would be foolish to think such things would or even could change. Books are like relationships. Some are for a season. And some are for life. You may say, if a book is just for a season, then why keep it? Great question. Perhaps you shouldn’t. Instead, give it away to someone else experiencing a similar season of life. But this is precisely why physical books matter. Good luck giving an electronic book away.
3. A window into someone’s soul.
I love books because books give us access to the thought processes of people I would never be able to meet in real life. I can be friends with presidents or successful entrepreneurs or people who walked with Jesus. I can be friends and learn from anyone who has written a book. Reading someone’s writing gives me a window into someone else’s soul. But that is true not only of the book and its respective author. That is true of a previous owner of a book who has made notes in the book. Oh, what treasures there are to be found in the notes of another. My dad passed away in 2017. I have many of the books he had in his personal library. He had a habit (which I have taken up) of writing in the front of his books when and where he finished reading them. He sometimes wrote other notes as well, including significant page numbers. What an amazing thing to see his notes or passages he had underlined. I can be immediately transported to another time and place. I can see him, in my memory, sitting in his chair, stack of books by his side, reading. I can get a glimpse of his thought processes when I see what pages or passages were significant to him…and without reading an entire book, I can get quick access to wisdom or knowledge my dad thought worth saving.
There are so many more reasons you should keep physical books. They can’t be deleted. They can’t be banned. They look great on bookshelves. They are pieces of art. There is nothing like reading a good book. May your life be filled with books.
“I am a product of endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic…In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.” (C. S. Lewis)
