For Love of Reading: Rediscovering the Power of the Page in a Digital Age
While driving through a neighboring town for work a few months ago, my attention was arrested by a large yellow banner in the window of a shabby shop front. USED BOOKS was emblazoned across the windows in grab you by the eyeballs black and yellow text. Unhesitatingly I changed course, whipped a U-Turn, and pulled into the parking lot. This flashy yellow lure proved too much for me, as I have an intense magnetism towards bookshops. I wouldn’t describe this attraction as fondness—it’s deeper than that, an integral programming etched into my brain since my youth.
Ding! The doorbell alerted my presence to a yet unseen shopkeeper in the back as I walked in. I stood still for a second just inside the door so my eyes could adjust to the dim. Fluorescents flickered, humming quietly on the tiled ceiling.
A man brushed by me as he headed toward the exit, the only customer besides myself. I wouldn’t even mention him if it weren’t for the peculiarity of his appearance. He was a large man, bigger than myself in both height and weight, with greasy slicked back hair and a patchy beard of wisps. Wide rimmed glasses rested on the tip of his nose, from which beads of sweat pooled and dripped down the front of his colorful, oversized Hawaiian shirt—a shirt which I imagined was the culprit for much of the B.O. assaulting my nasal passages. He sported a fanny pack over his shorts, and sandals over white socks.
His appearance was more caricature than that of a real person and I began to wonder if this signified the caliber of bookshop I was entering. Was this the bookseller where all the reclusive middle-aged nerds come? The secret lair of knowledge, mostly undiscovered and untarnished by prevailing society?
My feet moved forward as my eyes scanned the area. This place is big! I thought to myself. Big, but comfortably crowded, with rows and rows of bookshelves. Organized clutter is how I would describe it—my favorite kind of clutter. Sci-Fi, History, Philosophy, Thriller, Romance… Each row of bookshelves clearly labeled by genre. The books were mostly shelved in the right place, except for unshelved boxes of new arrivals sporadically interrupting the pathways.
The place was quiet, padded by ancient unswept mustard colored carpet, and insulated with cobwebs. The smell of both old and new books was present. New books that crack open with that new book smell, clean paper and warm ink, a glossy fanfare. And old books with brittle spines, loose leaves, in all colors of brown with their somewhat musty smell. A smell like basements, and attics, and cigarettes. The smell of intellectual adventure. I must bring my wife back here; she will love this place! I thought to myself.
Bookshops take me back to the much simpler times of my childhood. Family Library Day was every Thursday. Without fail my mother would take us to the county library for story hour, and to check out books. I carried a special canvas bag that my Nana made for me to carry them in. Mostly it helped keep them from getting displaced or mixed in with other books at home, before I returned them. On Thursday afternoons I would spend all day reading; an entire day each week dedicated to reading. The library handed out “Book-It” bookmarks, on which I could list the titles of all the books I read. Fill it up and Pizza Hut would give you a free personal pan pizza! Our family visited Pizza Hut frequently during those years.
As much as my youth was filled with reading, my adult life has been filled with everything but reading. I’m all too familiar with the rhythmic drumming of responsibilities that come with adulting. Homeownership, parenting, and work life take precedence. I still go to used bookshops, book fairs, and little free libraries, but I read less than ever save for the necessary non-fiction from which I draw design inspirations for art. My ever-expansive library operates as an underutilized pharmacy of knowledge from which I rarely fill prescriptions. Like a truck coasting on an empty tank, down the last quarter mile hill before the gas station, I’m running on fumes. Intellectual fumes from my once voracious bibliophile past, in which I read books in one or two sittings.
I identify as a reader, but that identity is based more in what I once was, and wish to be, than currently am. My current drifting state cannot go on; it’s untenable. The fumes are almost gone. If you’re not a reader, you will never be a writer, author Lee Child said in a recent interview I listened to. This statement really struck home. I’ve been writing more and more, but my ability to put my ideas on the page feels stilted. I stumble about the page like a junior high athlete, awkward, lanky, and uncoordinated. When I speak, or engage in conversation, I’m often at a loss for words, or the definition of them.
Words give us power to form ideas, and ideas are what change the world. There are words everywhere, but I believe vocabulary and literacy are endangered, shrinking with steady atrophy in a desert of digital dystopia. I’m concerned about the future of literacy and appreciation for reading. I’m concerned that healthy attributes of character such as patience, critical thinking, empathy and curiosity, gained from the discipline of reading, will fade from the fabric of our society.
I’ve chosen to make changes to improve my own literacy and vocabulary. I’m returning to the basics of grade school. I prioritize time to read a little every day. Keeping an index card for a bookmark, I jot down words I don’t know or would like to know better. Words like paroxysm, hypostasis, interpolation, prodigious, and surfeited are on my list. Some of the words I write down are a bit archaic, as I prefer older novels. At the end of each week, I take these words and make vocabulary cards. Each of these new words I learn gives me power to form ideas, power to write with more clarity. It’s my hope that through reading and writing I will bolster my critical thinking, grow in patience, and spark my curiosity. And perhaps, I will inspire others to do the same.
