books

Caught in the netherworld between romantic notion and prophetic practicality...
Failing a complete crashing of the world's industrial grid, one of the more touchingly humanistic ideas i've ever had is (and must be) passing away, doomed to a stillborn existence.
I love books.
Much of that love is abstract, of course...a love of all that books stand for...the dumbfounding miracle of thoughts being translated into words being translated into writing...intricate marks of staggering complexity that can be understood by a person you never have, nor ever will, meet...allowing you to walk through the mind of a stranger across the globe, or dead a thousand years...looking at their thoughts as they themselves shaped them. A miracle it's all too easy to take for granted.
A part of my love of books is not abstract at all. Growing up in this society, you develop a lifelong, intimate relationship with them. Their touch becomes as familiar as the caress of a lover. Their gentle weight as they rest on your chest. The sound of fastly-flipped pages. The smell of a literary treasure (to you, anyway) that was created before you were.
Passing away, passing away...
I first conceived this idea some years ago, and began implementing it (whenever i didn't forget). I decided to start a trend based on the notion that books should not be hoarded. They should be read and passed on, so that every book could accumulate its own rich history. Whenever i finished a book, i would sign my name on one of the blank pages at the back. Humans had long ago given purpose to the blank pages at the front (inscriptions and owner information), but i'd never seen anyone offer purpose to those empty pages at the end. In my dream, every reader of every book would list their name...i could be the 39th person to read a particular copy of "The 39 Steps". Or perhaps i'd read the copy of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" that had passed through Kurt Vonnegut's hands. Or the hardback of "Lolita" that had been treasured by Nelson Mandela.
This notion could have been my one enduring contribution to the history of literature.
But a couple years ago, i realized this was a dream that would never be. Perhaps were i born a decade earlier, i wouldn't have been progressively pragmatic enough to accept this inevitability, but...the era of paper books is coming to an end. It doesn't take a nostradamus to see. Digital reading is superior financially and ecologically, in terms of saved space and spared trees. With seven billion people on the planet, saving space is no joke. And though we might solve the problem of deforestation by using hemp trees for paper...ultimately, progress will render books little more than a quaint memory.
I've already begun adjusting my life accordingly.
A friend speaks of willing his book collection to me, and i say, "Within a decade or two, dear friend, no one will have books, nor want them."
People ask me about being published...and i tell them that anyone in the world can currently see almost all of my scribblings, virtually for free. How could any writer aspire to more? Shakespeare, Goethe, Keats...with what immeasurable, choking envy would they look upon writers in this internet age?
I've gone through my own books, a treasure i once measured as needing at least a seventy-foot shelf, and consigned the majority to charity or garage sale. I kept some rare ones and picture books, and i couldn't bring myself to let go of my collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs...late edition paperbacks that will have little value even a century or three from now. But they were a piece of my youth that exists in me beyond measure. And there they are still, much as they were when my small hands held them, transfixed. Not cold, not hard. Delicate but enduring. Burroughs was the writer who turned me into a reader. If you've never had that transformative experience, i can only offer my pity.
So while books still exist in this world, pass them on.
Signed or unsigned.
Pass them on...