Although I made sure the book I wrote (Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird) is available on devices like Kindle and Sony Reader, I still like to curl up on a couch or bed, or best of all on the chaise lounge on my plant-filled patio, with a good book. Entering the world the book presents to me, I travel vicariously, happily, and inexpensively to the realms of fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes the book presents totally new worlds to me, and sometimes it reminds me of people and places I have personally known.
"Shanghai Girls," the newest book by Lisa See, recently transported me back to China. Having spent so much time in China since 1988, I knowingly nodded my head yes when it described aspects of Chinese culture I have become accustomed to, and it added details of history I had heard of before, but didn't know well. Personally struggling to try my hand at writing fiction now, I was intrigued by the characters she developed to tell her story. Since I had only one brother and no sisters, I could only imagine the strength of the relationship of the two sisters in the book (the translation of the book in Chinese is actually called "Shanghai Sisters") who shared so much love and pain spanning their childhoods and adult years.
But that's what good books do -- they engage us totally for the hours we sit with them. They allow us to enter worlds we can never participate in. They give us ideas we may never have thought of. They broaden our perspective as well as our knowledge, make us laugh, cry, wonder. In contrast to movies, books give our imaginations the opportunity to visualize the people and places in them.
Public libraries are indeed the best buy in town.
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I doubt is electronics media will ever be able to totally replace books -- for the reasons you mention.
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