Article: Books, On-Line, Or Kindle Reading: Which Do You Prefer?

IMAGE SOURCE~©MELANIE NEER~PERSONAL PHOTOS OF JUST A "FEW" OF MY BOOKS

Originally written on October 2, 2013 for Bubblews, a website which no longer exists

I've been a bibliophile ever since I can remember, which when I think of it is a remarkable characteristic of my personality, considering my mother never cared for books. As a child she never read bedtime stories, usually my great-grandmother did that. Even in her later years, my mother wasn't too keen on reading, not even a newspaper, so yes it is remarkable that I developed a rather fanaticism when it came to books. Also as a child, my mother often bought the usual type gifts for me that were popular at the time for girls, and whether for my birthday or Christmas, she would buy me things like Barbie dolls…boring. Like how many Barbie dolls could one have? Then one year, she totally surprised me, and instead of more dolls, she gave me my very first book, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I got hooked with books. My mother perhaps didn't realize what she had started by getting that very first book, as many others were to follow including the Nancy Drew series, a copy of Island of The Blue Dolphins (by Scott O'Dell) and on and on it went. Yes, I turned into a bookworm. My idea of having a good time as a child wasn't playing with other children, but instead going to a library and taking books out, and settling comfortably at home reading, reading, reading.

My love for books continues to this day, and I have quite a collection, not only fiction, but being a science and history geek I have a rather staggeringly large collection of science books (geology, astronomy, archeology) and as for history, Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Babylonian, Medieval, Renaissance and American History, especially the Civil War period. Let's put it this way, I have books literally all over the place; even all the shelves, save one, in my linen closet has a storage of books in it since I ran out of room on my bookcases, and being rather OCD about things, all my books are stored according to subject and/or genre.

But here's the thing, to this day I prefer a book in my hand. I really am not a great on-line reader, in fact, if I can avoid reading too much on-line, I do. I could never, ever see myself downloading books and read from a Kindle either as it would remind me a bit too much of on-line reading Yes, I realize with a Kindle, one can snuggle in bed on a rainy day and read, but to my mind it's just not the same as having the feel of a book in hand, the real physical turning of the pages, the smell of a book. Yes, maybe I'm old fashioned, but give me a book any day and I'm a real happy camper.

So what is your preference? Books, on-line reading from a computer or a Kindle? And if you have books, do you have a large collection yourself?