All respect to Chris Sells, I’m with Petzold.  I freakin love books.  And doing more reading is a part of my de-stressing plan in response to recent events.

I have been a book lover since I can remember.   Reports are that I was reading by 3, and in my childhood you would often find me curled up with a book somewhere in the house.  I had dozens of my own books that I read over and over, I filled library punch cards over and over, and when I went to my grandparents’ I would read the books that my dad and aunts read 30 years prior.  I always read several grades above my level, and like many others I’m sure, can attribute the fact that I excel at intellectual endeavors beyond software at least in part to my love of reading.  I loved reading so much that even though I was a lazy student that found homework to be an option pending my whim, I would always read the book even if I didn’t do the book report.  Sick eh?

I can’t do e-books.  I can’t even read more than a few pages of a whitepaper or other large document on the computer screen.  I love the tangible connection with paper.  I love the smell of paper.  I love to hold a book, manipulate it, get comfortable with it.  You can’t do that with a laptop.  Well, I can’t.

I love bookstores.  I buy a lot of books from Amazon sure, but usually that’s my technical books.  The books I can’t expect a bookstore to carry just because.  I will walk the aisles of a bookstore for hours, regardless of the section, and gladly get lost among the stacks and shelves.  I can go to any aisle of any bookstore and find a book that I can pick up and take an interest in.  I’m a fixture in my local Barnes & Noble, and have been since it opened 11 years ago.  I’ve even worked there a couple of times.  My son has been a fixture there for his 8 years.  We used to bring him in and I would hold him and walk up and down the aisles slowly, and he would be mesmerised by the lines of colorful books and bindings.  That was how we got him to nap in the early days.  On any given day, if you ask him where he wants to go, it’s Barnes & Noble.

I own hundreds of books.  At one time it was in the thousands, but circumstances once forced me to pack all that I could in a 1989 Dodge Daytona and drive up the coast looking for work.  I left a lot of belongings behind that day, including a lot of books…but I still had 7 boxes of books in the car!  I buy at least a book a week on average, and try to read one or two a week as well (non-technical that is…I read technical books all the time).  I think I definitely can be classified as a bibliophile.

It makes me sad that the number of books at my local B&N has shrunk so much in the last decade.  I can walk in and point to where there used to be at least 800 more linear feet of books in just fiction alone.  Here in the bible-belt I’ve watched the sections for the eastern religions and philosophies shrink by about 400% to be overtaken by more and more Christian fiction and Purpose Driven Life-type fads.  Nothing against the Christian books, as I am a Christian…but had I a bookstore that wouldn’t happen.  There are fewer and fewer shelves of philosophy, history, classics, poetry, science, and so on every year, as they are replaced by Dr. Phil and fad diets.  (Side note, I’m wondering how long until a Da Vinci Code Diet comes out?)

Like Mr. Petzold, I love the serendipity (borrowing the phrase because it’s perfectly accurate) of used-book stores.  I used to frequent a couple here in Ocala, but I guess I was the only one because all of them have long since closed.  When I was in Boston, there were some real beautiful old bookstores on side streets and back alleys.

If I could be doing anything right now, and money were no object, I would own a book store.  I would have a healthy mix of used and new, but not too many new.  No midnight madness Harry Potter parties (though I enjoy Harry Potter).  There would be a lounge, maybe a coffee bar maybe not.  Haven’t made up my mind about wireless.  Classical music.  I would also build a rare book collection and trade.  I’ve always wanted to be a total bookstore snob, and run the place similar to the way John Cusack and Jack Black did the record store in High Fidelity (the scene where the father wants Lionel Richie…priceless).  I actually often was somewhat of that type when I worked at Barnes & Noble, much to the chagrin of the managers.

Anyway, I think I have made the point fairly well that I love books, and still buy books (computer and otherwise, take comfort Mike Gunderloy), and will continue to own books until the end of my time, even if I end up like Winston Smith, surreptitiously seeking books in some back-alley curio store because big brother has made us go all digital.