Books N' Trains....Or maybe Trains and Books?

Someone asked me the other day why I would want to buy a book…this statement came while we were conversing on the train ride to our respective homes. It took me a minute to wrap my head around the idea that someone else’s ideas on the subject of books and the purchasing of them might be so vastly dissimilar to my own. Let me put this plainly, I am a lover of books, period. Picture this, two people side-by-side sitting on the train, surrounded by crazy people at midnight or so on a Saturday night. What might be called a late-night dinner had just ended and although it went fine, it was just ‘fine’, the conversation if that is what you could call it was lacking and my thought was that it had been a little more than unsatisfying, on more than one level. Needless to say, when it just so happened that my friend was going the same way and was not adverse to conversation, I became a chatterbox, this isn’t normally my personality, but when you’ve been unable to have any decent conversations... well, one may go a little overboard. So from the bus stop to the train, the conversation flowed, somewhat haltingly at first, because of the dinner circumstances, but after a bit that impediment was removed as well. I was excited; I do love a good conversation. Well when asked this almost ludicrous question concerning the buying of books, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I then responded by telling this individual that it made perfect sense to purchase a book, firstly because it would be something that would be read again [this statement came after the aforementioned individual said that it didn’t make sense to buy something that you wouldn’t ever use again, because you would read the book and not ever read it again or something to that affect] and that there are more reasons to re-read a book than the simple fact that you like it, but also because your mind never catches every nuance that a book holds the first time you read something. There are layers in a book, there is something new to find every time you open it and flip through the pages. I think that this might have struck a chord, because they kind of ‘got it’ and said that yes, there was a book they’d read in high school that they’d liked and might want to read again, they said that they felt as if they were really there in the story. “That is the mark of a good writer,” I said “when you feel as if you are a part of the story, that’s how I want my own writing to be”. I would have said more but the conversation segued, so here is my second chance, my thoughts on books and writing, my ode, my declaration of love. Pick up a book, feel the cover, the paper, the leather, or the cloth that binds it, the satin smooth pages or the roughened edges, smell the ink, the must, the ‘new’ smell that accompanies the crinkling paper. When you hold a book you are holding the world. Not only the world, but knowledge, innovation, imagination- a piece of something, someone- mind body and soul. It is amazing. Contained within the pages of a book are the thoughts and ideas of another human being, you are taking part in the pleasures and pains of another mans soul. It is that part that can whisk you away to unknown places and other times it is a wonderful thing. So, go. Get swept away, buy a book, and don’t just borrow it, because you’re going to read it again.