There is something about old books

I love books, always have and always will.  Not being able to travel much, really at all, as a child it was a way for me to explore strange and exciting new lands, I met some of the most interesting, worldly, and knowledgeable people as I sat curled up in a cozy blanket by the wood stove.

It wasn’t until I was older that I discovered old books, and I don’t mean old as in the 1970’s, I mean old as in the 1870’s! Leather bound books with gold embossing that is all but gone, in a variety of sizes, some so small they easily fit in a pocket. You hold it with great care lest it is you that causes damage to it after all the decades of being passed from one hand to the next. You gently open the cover and are greeted with the damp musty smell that gives credit to its age and evokes an emotion of being stored and forgotten about for far to long. With the cover open you gently turn the page and see a faded signature in old world calligraphy and a date of 1839! Your heart skips a beat as you stare in wonder and awe that something so delicate and fragile could have survived for so long. How did it escape not being destroyed in a fire or flood? How did it manage to survive all these decades and not get consumed by mold? Whose and how many loving hands held it, protected it and read it time and time again?

I came across many such books on my recent trip to the UK and a few even found their way home with me. In today’s technological world and so many books being published as ebooks it makes me wonder, is this, the writing of ones thoughts, ideas and imaginations on paper going to fade into the past and become just a novelty like records and 8-tracks? I sit here wondering this as I am writting this blog…. online.