These books have been around the block.
These books have done the hard yards.
They’ve had the stuffing knocked out of them
like a much loved teddy bear,
the sort of sorry, scruffy specimens grandparents bring
to ‘The Repair Shop’ ( UK ).
Is there an equivalent place for bruised, battered books?
What happens to them?
Is there a retirement home for old books?
A Hospice where sick books go to die?
Are we allowed to visit?
Is it over for paper books,
like it is for paper bills?
Is the future for books solely digital?
I for one like to hold books
like children teddy bears.
John Malone 
Oh, this post is witty and wise, John. Book rehab for a few of my favorites. Some of my favorite places are book nursing homes. There’s so many stories told there. This is by far the best thing I’ve read all day.
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gee thanks, K; I needed that ; I still like the physical book though at night when I read sometimes in bed i read stories on my mobile —
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You’re welcome. Much prefer my books. Truth: I’ve never read a novel online.
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me neither; I just read short stories and articles from ‘Th New Yorker’; they soothe me and put me to sleep — sort of like a teddy bear 🙂
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Short story snuggie. How delightful. I find the stories I’m reading to be more like “do not put this book down or it will self-destruct, sorts of things…” But sometimes, I find a good teddy bear of a short story collection and I definitely look forward to snuggle time.
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delightfully said, K 🙂
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I also love to hold, smell, and read real paper books!
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good on you, Becky; fortunately the paper book seems to be thriving; both forms happily co-exist —
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Yes!
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Love the last 2 lines. I don’t think paper books will completely disappear. Maybe that’s more a hope than a real observation based on evidence. But honestly… I hate reading from a screen (for anything of more than a couple of pages) and I hate reading a book and not knowing where I am compared to the end of it. But it’s weird to think that I grew up with the World Book Encyclopedia and our kids don’t really know what an encyclopedia is. And will paper based dictionaries survive? Paper maps have become a somewhat specialised hobby. There genuinely seems to be a generation of people growing up not knowing how to use a paper map. It’s so bizarre to think that our thumbs might end up more dexterous than our minds. 🤭. Just kidding.
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You won’t believe this but when I was between jobs I went door to door selling World Book Encyclopaedias till a real job came along. Needless to say I have a full set including the children’s edition . I know about the paper maps. I used to use them all the time. I’m okay using Google Maps but still prefer — what was it? — the Fullers Street Directory 🙂
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My Mum sold WBEs door to door in Perth for a while too. I guess that’s why we had them all. :-D. They’re really good! DId your edition have the story of the Sooner Hound? When I was living in Melbourne, I came to Canberra to visit my now husband. I arrived into a strange city well after dark and in the interior light in my old Mazda had long since failed. I hadn’t thought to bring a torch and I didn’t have a mobile phone (although they were getting more common by then). Every time I got lost I would have to pull over, get out the Gregory’s (or whatever the Canberra equivalent is) and go and stand in front of the headlights so I could read the map. It was a terrible way to navigate. I think I ended up finding a public phone and ringing my now husband to get help. But what fun, right?! You don’t get stories like that with a Tom tom.
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I can’t recall the Sooner Hound, Worms; it was a long time ago and i gave them away when I shifted into a unit; but everything you want to know is online now so it doesn’t really matter — and they took up SO MUCH SPACE !
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Awwww. Can’t nostalgia fix that? 😉
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I am all about the real thing
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good on you, Beth; as long as there’s enough of us, the real thing will survive 🙂
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I think that paper books will always be popular. I hope so, anyway.
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I like to keep my favorite books around me, on the shelf near my bed; they are a comforting presence 🙂
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Some paper books need to retire like the rest of us, but there will always be more generations to replace them, as long as humanity survives. Too many of us love to hold the real thing for it to ever disappear.
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I hope in this era of cancel culture we do not witness book burnings again —
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There is always that edge…
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I’ve never read a digital book. I’m sticking with paper. I have some books in pretty rough shape from years of being reread. But they are gems to me.
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I have books like that too; a shelf-full of favourites survived the shift to the unit 🙂
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I rue the day printed books disappear.
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I think we can both rest; it’s not going to happen 🙂
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Very cool
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glad you like it, Kaycee —
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I like to hold books too, but I’d rather read my Kindle any day or night. So convenient to have a whole library at your fingertips, and you don’t need a light, or reading glasses. Sorry, books – you are loved but relegated to wallflower status!
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I agree; I read my kindle in bed 🙂
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It’s frustrating that many old books – the less popular ones – are not digitized, and may never be.
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that is true; we may lose many ‘lost classics’ in this way 😦
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They are so comforting. 🙂
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yes, you can snuggle into books deep in the night with the bedside lamp on 🙂
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So beautifully written, John. It reminds me of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Have you read it? It’s one of my all-time favourite books. Your poem captures a similar sentiment — that of the tangibility of paper books, their importance to a reader’s experience of a story, and what is lost when a physical book disappears.
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no, I haven’t but now I want to 🙂 I will check with the library when I return my Bono book 🙂
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I hope you can find a copy!
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