When I look back on my life, some of the happiest parts have been spent browsing bookshelves in libraries and stores and the subsequent hours of reading.  But I must confess that I’m not a purist.  I own a Kindle – in fact, with the recent release of the Kindle Fire, I now own two.  Do I feel guilty about it?  Well, how could I?  Anything that allows me access to literature that I can tailor to my interests and invigorate my mind is a good thing.

Nevertheless, I haven’t abandoned the wondrous and irreplaceable presence of physical books in my life.  Even though once mighty chain stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble have disappeared from the San Francisco scene, my pockets are continually rifled for what dollars I can spare and greedily afford at Green Apple Books, Books Inc., or City Lights.  I refuse to resign myself to the very real fact that Walgreens is the only mainstream source for books at any given moment, in any given neighborhood.

And yet, while I know what squeezed book chains out of the city and what threatens independent sellers still, I am also a regular patron of Amazon.com.  Not only for Kindle purchases, but for the increasingly quaint formats of hardbacks and paperbound copies.  Do I feel bad about that either?  Well, no, not exactly.  Because when you’ve trawled Amazon from your computer in the wee hours of the morning in your pajamas and you find exactly the right book for someone through Amazon.co.uk and have it directly dispatched to your friend in London – well, that’s a very handsome service, n’est-ce pas?  It feels very civilized in fact – almost 84 Charing Cross Road civilized.

It must be said that Amazon has also disappointed greatly in the past.  Often, I’ve thought that Amazon even hates books – physical books, I mean.  I’ve ordered expensive coffee-table-quality volumes that are so carelessly packaged that their corners are dinged in transit and arrive resembling squishy elephant folds – just heartbreaking.   I have pained thoughts about how wasteful it was to ruin the once glorious book, now rendered grotesque.  Damaged books have to be sent back and replaced, but you’re praying that the new copy doesn’t arrive as the first did.

The worst Amazon offense occurred when I ordered Amy Lawrence’s biography of Montgomery Clift and film historian Kevin Brownlow’s book “The Search for Charlie Chaplin”.  On their arrival, I opened the box and pulled out the contents, and the books smelled distinctly and unmistakably of strawberry jam.  I kid you not!  The books had literally become the slices of bread, sandwiched together with sticky jam.  I’m guessing that the Amazon packager was snacking while fulfilling my order (p.b. and j?  jelly doughnut?  I leave you to guess).  But it wasn’t just handling the books with grubby digits – the packager had also gone through the added trouble of placing the books on a sheet of cardboard and shrink-wrapping the whole bundle in plastic.  So ironically, the books did not shift in transit and there were no dinged corners.

I cannot forget, however, that Amazon was my source for the Harry Potter books when I would wait for the latest installment to reach my Smeagol-like possession (yes, I’m mixing fantasy franchise allusions here).  The books would come in their own packaging adorned with illustrations by Mary GrandPré, and they arrived on Saturdays (their designated release days).  The Fed Ex trucks would be delivering up and down the neighborhood blocks all day to other Harry Potter fanatics.  Those are days I doubt I shall ever see again for many reasons – because of the nature of the publishing world, shipping costs, and the oncoming imperative of digital books, just to name a few.

While I depend on bookstores and Amazon for new releases, out-of-print and obscure titles are usually covered by eBay, Alibris.com, and memberships with the public library and the Mechanics’ Institute here in San Francisco.  The public library is free, but the other sources are not.  How a girl can financially keep up the publishing, librarying, and book mongering worlds AND have enough to eat by and maybe get a stick of lip gloss, I don’t know.  But it happens.

Ultimately, it’s about words – their beauty, timelessness, nostalgia, presence, and power.  It’s about the ravenous need to consume them, fire imaginations, spawn pale imitations, inspire greater works, and propel the human race onwards. 

I don’t believe books will go the way of the horse and carriage, typesetting, and 35mm film cameras – at least not truly.  And if I’m wrong, I will try to stave off the siege, for as long as possible.