Ah that smell!

By Mike Jastrzebski

I have to admit that on occasion I miss the smell of paper books. Don’t get me wrong, I do all of my reading on my Kindle. In fact I’ve had a Kindle since the Kindle 1 came out, and I never read paper books anymore. I was one of those people who had to wait for that first Kindle to be delivered because Amazon did not have enough Kindles in stock to meet the demand when they first came out.

But the other day I picked up Mary’s dictionary and when I opened it a little whiff took me back to the past.

For most of my life, until I moved onto our sailboat, I was a book collector. When I was young it was the Hardy Boys, The Black Stallion, Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island.

In my twenties I opened a used book store in Detroit called The Hidden Nook Bookstore. I sold any and all types of used books but I specialized in science fiction and comic books. At one time I put together a nice collection of Edger Rice Burroughs first editions along with various other first editions. The biggest problem I had with owning a used book store was that I had a hard time letting go of the best books I bought for the store.

Later in life, when I got serious about writing, I collected first edition mysteries by writers that I met at conferences and book signings. So you can see that I’ve always had an affinity for paper books.

But alas, once we began living on a boat the books were boxed up and stored for years before I bought my first Kindle. When I discovered that I could keep thousands of books on the Kindle I stopped buying paper books. I got rid of all of my paper books a couple of years ago. I still read as much as I used to, maybe more, but always on my Kindle.

I don’t really have any regrets about exchanging paper books for electronic books, but every once in awhile I get my hand on a paper book and when no one is watching I open it up and take a sniff for old times sake.

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