If you love paper books, you’ll enjoy this essay by William Geraldi. A few snippets to prime your pump:

“What does it mean when what you own is essential to who you are? In our everyday grasp of owning things, we tag it materialism, consumerism, consumption. But I trust you’ll agree that the possession of books is not identical to the possession of shoes: Someone with a thousand books is someone you want to talk to; someone with a thousand shoes is someone you suspect of belonging to the Kardashian clan. Books are not objects in the same way that shoes are objects.’

“For readers, what they read is where they’ve been, and their collections are evidence of the trek.”

“The wise are wise only insofar as they know that they know nothing. In other words: Someone with all the answers has no use for books.”

“Like the bicycle, the book is a perfect invention, and perfection dies very, very hard. The car hasn’t murdered the bike, and the Web won’t murder the book.”