Random Musings about the Reading Experience

I was in a couple of bookstores in Saskatoon a couple of months ago in preparation for some pre-release promotion for The Rebels and some in Toronto. There are still a lot of people who go to bookstores and I must admit that even though I rarely step foot in one, there is nothing quite like the visceral feel of being inside a bookstore, being surrounded by a world of literature. It's nothing like staring at it on a screen, which is an antiseptic experience most days. I think that I will forever, along with many people, equate reading with the feel of paper in my hands, flipping real pages, hearing the rustle of paper. Seeing shadows fall across the pages as I turn to the next chapter.

Don't get me wrong. I also love my Kobo reader. It's portable word power in a compact device. But the worrier in me always wonders if the battery is going and while changing font sizes for my weary eyes is a bonus, I can never quite get the same feel of seeing a full 'page' on the screen. The screen always seems too small.

I hope there is still room in the new world for bookstores. It will be a sad day when we can't go into a store and be surrounded by a world of books and share that experience with real people going to the same place for the same reason.