I became a big reader in about the 3^rd to 5th grade.  The first books I loved were The Autobiography of Lou Gehrig (I couldn’t say why—I don’t even like sports), The Railway Children, Pippi Longstocking, and all Dr. Suess books. In high school, some of my favorites were Catcher in The Rye, Of Mice and Men, almost all of Hermann Hesse books, and a few subversive titles like Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.  My taste in college expanded very much into humor, classics, and political/philosophical titles that proposed all sorts of feminist-anarchy-driven revolutions.   And onward…my tastes grew and expanded, as they obviously would.

Fortunately, I love books, as I’ve already said.  Unfortunately, they can be very heavy when in large collections, and also dusty.  After accumulating a substantial library over the course of my life, I have recently started to pare down.  It has become important to me to reduce my possessions in case of yet another move…and maybe even to a faraway land, who knows.  Those 500 ( or more, I don’t remember) books aren’t going anywhere…not again.  I won’t pack or move them even one more time, as I have done oh so many times.

Now, I mostly listen to books and I don’t buy any new ones in physical form.  No longer am I the constant book store peruser and/or customer picking up at least a couple each visit.  Yet  I feel highly ambivalent over all of it…my books formed a significant part of my identity.  It’s kind of like:  You are what you eat, subbing “eat” for “read.”  Surveying a person’s home library used to be like getting a window into their soul, and walking into a home with no books was perplexing for me.  Why oh why aren’t there any books here?  Is this person blank inside?

I don’t like to sound snobbish or eggheaded:  I’m neither of those things.  Nevertheless, these thoughts did occur to me at times.

Now that books are somewhat passe, people don’t really keep libraries anymore.  I am even aware that some people order book “fascades” as decor.  But some of my students brag that they have started little book collections at home, and that makes me happy.  More often than not, people confess all the time that they just do not read anymore.  Many students admit freely that they don’t read regularly and never have.  “I just don’t have the time,” say the many students I’ve asked.  It’s understandable, since I’ve heard that one round of Fortnite takes up to three hours.

Yet, the tests they have to take require serious reading skills.  As I tutor for the new SAT and PSAT, I see that the College Board is expecting some seriously discerning readers to take these tests.  Where are these devoted bibliophiles coming from?  Maybe other countries? 

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story entitled “The Fun They Had” in 1951.  In short, two kids are being educated , as all kids in the story are, completely at home and on the computer.  One day, they discover an old textbook of one of their parents up in the attic, all yellowing and dusty.  Gazing at the oddity, they asked each other what people would have done with these?  They research and find out about the times children went into buildings called schools, used these book-things, and met other youngsters.  Hence, they marveled over “the fun they [must have] had..”  Asimov was pretty visionary, don’t you think?

As we enter the brave new world, many of us “dinosaurs” need to make serious adjustments.  I know I’ve had to and still need to.   As my once grand library dwindles into a much smaller version, I’m wondering if, like the lost socks you are supposed to be reunited with in heaven, I will see my lost (sold or donated) book treasures again in the afterlife.