things that make me weak and strange

I admire the science and progress that has brought us to the point at which we no longer have to hold an actual book in our hands to be able to read a book. Because my fiance loves gadgets, I have walked through stores filled with various devices dedicated to that purpose. Many of them are extremely readable, lightweight, and easy to use. Still, I'm a little uneasy about the idea that someday soon, I might be packing my favorite titles away in a box, having downloaded them all in a digital format. I know it's silly, because most people have done the same thing with CDs anyway, but books are different. It is not just the stories themselves that make them wonderful; it is the moments attached to them.

Do you remember people reading to you, reciting line after line as you turned the enormous pages of Mother Goose collections and Aesop's fables, and Little Golden Books and Steven Kellogg stories, gazing in wonder at the details in every illustration? I recall how grown-up I felt when, after a book fair at my elementary school, I sent out my first-ever mail order for a package, and a boxed set of four Ann M.Martin paperbacks arrived in the mailbox. Judge me, but because my friends and I traded books we didn't have, and I read hundreds of books in that series, including all the special editions, I became interested in language, in communicating and learning. And I read history books and science books and mysteries; I excelled in the Accelerated Reader program and felt at home in libraries and bookstores.

In middle school, a friend and I visited the library, walking through the aisles and whispering to each other in standard this-is-a-library fashion. I told her a secret -- one of the first secrets I had ever told anyone, though it wasn't an important one -- that I loved the smell of new books. "Oh, no, Kelli," she said, "Let me introduce you to Old Book Smell." And she reached up on the shelf and handed me what seemed to me an ancient first-edition copy of My Side of the Mountain, and I hesitantly breathed in. And it was awesome. (Sorry, Jordan.)

In eighth grade I discovered science fiction, admittedly because I wanted to impress my big crush at the time, Matt. I had heard him talking with his friend Bryant (yes, Bryant) about how awesome Ender's Game was, so I wanted to find out why. And I read Orson Scott Card and Isaac Asimov, and they stuck with me.

In high school, I read mainly textbooks, but my best friend let me borrow her copy of White Oleander after a speech tournament. I discovered I liked poetry and Calvin and Hobbes.

I once wrote to Markus Zusak and asked him if he'd autograph a piece of paper for me to add to a copy of I Am The Messenger that I was planning to give to Bryant for Christmas. A week later, I went to my P.O. box one day and was delighted to find that the author sent me a signed copy of the book with a personalized message in his handwriting. In college, there were brand-new copies of textbooks, campus bookstore refugees with the bright yellow "USED" stickers clinging to their spines, hard-to-find copies of books by somewhat obscure Southern authors and a whole host of King Arthur books I read and discussed in a gray classroom with my favorite professor and a class full of literature majors. I read James Joyce and Frederick Douglass. And Looking for Alaska, and Jurassic Park and The Lost World. And Devon lent me Catch-22, which I read in a sleepy daze while I sat outside to try and stay awake on early mornings after newspaper layout. And my mom gave me this Maria Shriver book full of advice on how to live a happy life (ouch). In between classes and in the evenings, I sat on the floor of the on-campus library, I combed through the pages of books on crime and ancient issues of Vogue, and I sat crouched in the stacks for blissful hours, reading, absorbing, getting away from my classmates and my computer and my life, which seemed to be happening very fast.

Since then, the books I've read have been few and far between.

Now, when I read, I am on an airplane, hours away from going to a trade show I'm covering for work. Or at a fast-food restaurant, trying to relax during my lunch break, or enjoying a solitary hour on a quiet Saturday morning in the sunroom of my apartment.

But I still love the feeling of picking up a paperback in a store, reading that first sentence and -- importantly -- knowing that if I decide to read it outside and it starts to rain, I'm not going to feel guilty for destroying yet another $100 machine.

Go read something.