Book Zen

I've decided I'm going on a buying spree. I'm going to buy books while they can still be bought. Real, honest to goodness books.

My decision is spurred by Borders Books going out of business - apparently because electronic books have pushed demand for the real thing lower than low.

While I understand the convenience of one of those electronic book reading gadgets, there is a loss associated with those things. Absolutely nothing is more relaxing than being in a place filled with bound volumes of paper; nothing more comforting that than the feel of heavy paper beneath your fingertips; nothing more Zen than sitting with a hardback book in your lap.

I envision the furniture in my home office being moved out one piece at a time until all that is left is a small writing place and a comfortable chair. Everything else will be sacrificed for floor to ceiling bookcases. Bookcases along the walls. Bookcases back to back in the center of the room. Bookcases filled with books of various sizes and shapes. Bookcases providing a retreat where, after a long day, I can inhale the scent of print on paper, run my finger along creased spines, grasp a favorite book just as I would shake hands with an old friend.  There in my office I will know that at least in one corner of the world the rightness of things still remains.