Please, Don't Make My Books Go Digital

My dad keeps "trying" to convince me to purchase some type of e-reader--a Nook, a Kindle. I use scare quotes because the man knows me. He provided half of my DNA. And he knows that the apocalypse will come before I choose to read my books electronically. In this day and age of already plenty-enough staring at computer screens (after all, I get all my news online), I relish the physical interaction of reading a book. I like turning pages. I like New Book Smell, and Old Book Smell, and I even like You Found Me In A Used Bookstore and You Can't Place My Smell Smell. I like taking notes in my books when the whim hits me. Sometimes I dog ear pages. (But not often. It ruins books' aesthetics.) I recently read someone--and no, I don't remember who-- who wrote about the experiences we have that are associated with particular books. And she (yes, I remember it was a she! Hm, maybe it was from The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, now that I think about it) talked about how we are tied to particular actual material books--our copies. It makes perfect sense to me: it's why I resent that I had to replace the first copy of Ella Enchanted I owned--the one I begged my mother to let me read to her (and she complied, at least for a few pages)--with a lesser, less hammered version. It's why I'm always a little bit sad every time I pick up a new edition of Corduroy in the bookstore---the one I originally fell in love with as a young, young child had practically fallen apart. I have difficulty imagining waves and waves of nostalgia and untold reminiscences triggered by my touching an e-reader. And while I can "note" an electronic copy, it's just not the same as rereading 1984 and coming across my own handwriting with some note that 17-year-old me thought was such a revelation while 27-year-old me marvels at how obvious that revelation seems now. Not a revelation at all, anymore, except that it still seems that way when I see it in my own juvenile handwriting. Of course, to be fair to my dad: he knows I'll never go digital when it comes to my books. He just wants to keep from moving any more of mine than he has to the next time I change location. But books are supposed to be heavy: heavy with importance. And memories. And more stories than the words on the page readily show.