Reading-Obsessed

Our world has been transformed. It won't do a bit of good for the readers of the world to unite and protest the Internet taking over the world of literature. Google has already done it, and intends to continue doing it; encouraging the posting of all the great literature of the world so it can be accessed on line. It really is a new, information-accessible world out there.

You have to know how, but it's easy enough; user-friendly as they say. Even for cranky old dodderers. Those are the ones who've been long accustomed to hefting a publication in their wrinkled old hands, and viewing the offerings page by page with their age-impacted, failing eyesight. What do the elderly know anyway?

They think they know what they like, but they're delusional.

Libraries will never be the same again. Unless they're personal libraries, set up in the homes of those fortunate enough to have the space and the wherewithal to collect enough books to present as a personal library. We're one of them. Since we're just one elderly couple living in a house much too large for merely two people, a bedroom has been transformed into a library.

We've got books that we've had in our possession, following us from house to house, since we were kids, both of us. There was a time, when we were, let's see, about eighteen, both of us, and we joined the Book-of-the-Month Club. We also used to visit our local library branch often as well, but it was thrilling to be able to have a collection of our very own, personal books.

We're older now, and somewhat wiser. What's the difference, really, between borrowing books from a library, and buying second-hand books? A diligent searcher will discover books of every variety, from popular mysteries and novels to award-winning non-fiction books. Classics and the most recent publications, they're all to be had for a veritable song.

We buy new books only for our granddaughter. For us, it's used books all the way. Some of them downright venerable, some of them gently used, and some of them appear previously untouched by human hands. Our library shelves (my husband built bookshelves all over that bedroom transformed to a library) bulge with books.

We haven't read them all, but plan to. We're obsessed by books, want to read as much as we can, of all genres, all ages. We have those aspirations, to continue educating and entertaining ourselves as long as possible. Failing eyesight on my part merely means increased-visual-strength prescriptions, a right royal pain in the arse, but a necessary one.