GJI Penguin’s post from last Sunday about e-books (here) has gotten me thinking about books.  

Books are so fascinating—you learn from them; you get to know other people. They offer a personality up to you. You get to know the author’s mind and way of approaching life.  

You can hear the author’s voice in your mind—and each author sounds different. Hemingway is laconic. Twain has a sparkle in his voice, reflecting the twinkle in his eye. (Robertson Davies sounds similar, but with a Canadian accent, eh?) Dr. Johnson lectures in rounded sentences. Austen speaks her periodic sentences in quieter tones. Dickens chuckles and sobs (the latter a bit too often). Shelley gushes (“I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”). Amy Tan speaks slowly and almost whispers.  

Browsing through books in a bookstore or library is fun because you get the chance to listen to these different voices and choose the one you wish to listen to for a time: the one that speaks to you. You sample what’s there and decide if you want further contact. Browsing is like shopping for friends. Gifts of books are like family: you don’t have as much choice, but they can become part of you. 

Sometimes, while browsing, you reject a book that sounds too focused, just as you might shun someone you meet who reveals himself to be narrow minded or intolerant. 

Of course, the appearance of a book influences your choices. You might not be able to tell a book by its cover, but just as the style of dress, the appearance, and the mannerisms of an acquaintance attract or repel you, you form an impression from the look of the book. That impression can invite you inside or lead you to turn away, looking for a different conversational partner. 

Truth is, all books have a basic attraction. With their shiny covers and clean white edges, they are neat packages of information and insight. Roger Angell, in one of his masterly contemplations of baseball, described a baseball as a perfect object because its form suggests its purpose: it is meant to be thrown. Similarly, a book is meant to be held in the hand. (Books are better than scrolls—you can do them one-handed.) And, if you cradle it in a slightly cupped hand, one cover resting against your thumb and the other against your fingers, books naturally do what they are destined to do: they open. (Books are better than e-books, because the opening of the book is a metaphor for the widening world they offer.) 

Gravity, a natural force, propels the pages open, and the ideas and feelings begin to flow.

I get excited opening a new book for the first time—there is an anticipation of encountering something new, the expectation of being charmed or amused or enlightened. Books are clearly products of the mind—they are rational in their rectangularity and their use of space, their mixing of fonts and type sizes and their blend of words and pictures. But that rationality creates a mood—it offers an invitation to learn from someone else’s well-ordered thoughts.  

This truth stems from the basic distinction between speech and writing—speech is often spontaneous response; writing comes from consideration. The package, then, the look of the book, must reflect that fact of deliberation. A jumbled page or unattractive type undercuts the message. A bad book design is like an obnoxious neighbor. The advice he gives might be useful, but his offensive manner disinclines us from accepting it. 

Dickinson was right, of course: “There is no frigate like a book.” But her image is apt not only in terms of a book’s ability to transport us to new realms. A book is like a frigate in appearance as well: a towering human creation, a wonderful marriage of form to function. 

Words and pictures © 2009 AtHome Pilgrim.

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