Wasted--But Books Revive Me

You know what it's like--you put in a hellish week of work for a worthy cause, a noble cause, and then you attend the all-day meeting on a Saturday, when you're on the edge of your seat every minute promoting your cause, and then it's over, and you come home wasted, beat to a pulp, but it was worth it. You desperately need to get away from that work and drain every brain cell that was involved.

I Need a Book.

So where am I with Books?

I just started reading a book everyone has read by now. I wonder why I bother reporting that I'm finally reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsen. I own it in mass-market paperback and, line by line, I'm finding the text body is too narrow. The lines run right into the margin, right into the spine! They get lost in there while I pry the spine apart. Very disappointing, especially considering Ken wants to read it when I'm done. Pages will be falling out by then, I'm sure.

I have friends who insist they overwhelmingly prefer reading paperbacks, and are pleased when the book is published in a mass-market format. "A hardcover book is just too heavy on my lap," Cindy told me last night. "I like to be able to hold the book in one hand while I'm cooking, while I'm sitting on the deck, when I'm in bed."

I was flabberghasted. I adore hardcovers. I love gazing at the "original" dustcover, running my fingers over the high-quality paper, sitting with the weight on my lap. But they do take up more shelf space, yet they endure decades of decay much better. So I vote for hardcovers. And from the library, I'll only touch hardcovers, with few exceptions.