Long Live the Book?

It's "Fall Cleaning" time! All you at-home moms know what I mean. The kids are back at school and so they can't stop you from clearing out the "junk" from their drawers, closests, and - if you dare - under their beds. The clearing out of our bookshelves comes at a good time given that my son's preschool teacher just asked for book donations for their recently added classroom.

In my clearing out, I came across a book that I mentioned to a friend. Yesterday, I put it in an envelope and shipped it to her across the country.

I am a book/bookstore junkie! I could wander in a bookstore or library for hours. If only I could get around to reading the ever growing stacks of books that I have purchased. Instead, they wait for me in 2 large boxes sitting out tauntingly in my bedroom.

As I moved the boxes today to get to the window, the large poster for the Sony Reader prominently posted on the window of my local Borders came to mind. Oh, what fun it would be to have one of those!
Wouldn't that help eliminate my need to have these big boxes cluttering up my bedroom. (Yes, I should also consider getting a bookshelf!) Also, I could take my reader with me and get it out when I am waiting in the line to pick-up my kids at school. As someone who usually has 3 to 5 books going at the same time, this would keep me from having to haul them all around.

And yet, I could not drop a book from the reader in the mail and send it to a friend or share it with my child's school. Should it replace the actual purchasing of these books, my children may not have the fun of passing their favorite childhood books to their own children as I have.

I love the idea of the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. When that technology has come down in price, I would love to own one...but not in lieu of actual (and much-beloved) books.