beauty before the kindle.

Listening to: "Heartbeat" by The Fray

I am a nerd and I'm proud of it. Today is Harry Potter day. I'm currently wearing my Marauders tee from this lovely Etsy shop and I watched most of Prisoner of Azkaban before class this morning (therefore I had to wear this tee). 

So, thanks to Pinterest, I have been wasting time I need to be studying lately. But, I have found some pretty things.

Books and bookshelves. 

I am completely obsessed. 

I love reading (assuming I actually have time to do so...) and I love old books. I love smelling books. I love flipping the uneven pages.

Over the summer I was able to go to my friends cottage for a few days with my best girlfriends. While we were there, we left the lake to go into town. The main reason was to go to a bookstore. This bookstore is filled with books. The bookshelves above look like the entire store. Even the books that I despised in high school looked beautiful on the shelves. There is something beautiful about an old book in print.

I purchased a 1943 copy of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I am obsessed with the illustrations which were printed from wood carvings. I love the yellowed pages. I love the smell. And of course I love the story, and most people think I'm crazy for calling this book my favorite of all time.

I took my time to browse the store. About 2 hours to be exact. It was beautiful. I didn't even look at 3/4 of the store in depth because we just did not have the time. Next summer, I'm thinking another trip may be in order. :] 

What I want to know is why people think the Kindle and Nook will ever make books completely obsolete. It just makes me sad. I understand that they are convenient and handy, but it's not the same. I would rather actually flip a page instead of just touching a screen with my finger.

Books will never cease to exist. The Kindle may become the main form of reading books, but when I grow old, I want to curl up in a chair under blankets reading a book with actual pages. There's something special and enchanting about printed books. Hopefully enough people will be able to see that for years to come.