Paper Chasing

“Delight in book collecting, and in showing off one’s book collection, is common, if not universal, among readers and would-be-readers. The biggest reason we spend money on books is because we want to read them (eventually), but that isn’t the only reason: we also like to look at them, and to look at other people looking at them. While moving into my new apartment this month I found myself casting long, admiring glances at my full bookshelves, straightening out folded pages and making sure the spines were perfectly lined up. I have devoted most of my moving time to arranging these shelves; books accounted for probably 90 percent of the weight I had to lift up three flights of stairs into my apartment. When I move out in two years, I will have to do it all again. Why do I—why do we—devote so much time, energy, space and money to these $15 hunks of paper? Why do I risk compressed discs every time I move into a new apartment? Or, to put it another way: Why don’t I just buy a Kindle?”

“In order to distinguish my hobby of collecting books from, say, my mother’s hobby of collecting ceramic iguanas, I have to claim that it is distinguished by the experience of the reading itself. I have to claim that in collecting and reading all these books I am doing something productive, constructive, worthwhile.”

“The way I treat my books shows that no matter how important they are to me as things to read, they also exist as decorative objects and status symbols.”

“Even if my entire library can fit in my pocket—which was the whole pitch of the Kindle in the first place—I don’t think I want it to. The pleasure of owning beautiful objects like books is, after all, not just a private pleasure. It’s also a shared pleasure, which means that my book collection doesn’t only have to inspire pride in me and envy in others. It can also inspire meaningful conversation.”