I used to have a number of books that are now no longer in print. I am trying to rebuild my collection but I am hampered by finances and my own cheapskate nature.
However I have found estate sales to be a wonderful source of cheap and old books.
I found a nice first edition of "Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic" for a dollar. I love things like that!
I suppose there may come a time when the equivalent of the Kindle will be able to put what feels like a real book in your hands, complete with the texture, the smell, and some of the antique flavoring due to tiny imperfections in the printing process.
Hopefully at that time a resurgence in nostalgia for such will have repositories constructed that will be truly for the ages.
It's a thing to wish for, anyway.
I do love books.
... this is why you’re living,
Here in the folded lands,
The flat landscape that opens up,
Uncovered by your hands.
Transferring wisdom through those funnels,
You call eyes into your head,
To give you memories of past lives,
As gifts of what you’ve read.
For now the thousand lives I’ve led,
Inure me to some pain,
Those joyous friends I will not see,
Unless I read again,
Yet still they wait, on dusty shelves,
For other eyes than mine,
Like goblets for the next to taste,
Their own first sips of wine.
(Excerpt from "As Long As I Live")
NicknamedBob . . . . . June 26, 2008