Back From The Digital Future: My Return to Paper and Ink Books

My adult life I’ve had an unreasonable fear of being without a book to read. The anxiety is triggered when I travel, particularly by air. I trace its beginning to childhood when, on a family vacation to visit my grandparents in Italy, our plane was delayed in Germany for hours due to bad weather. Eventually, all passengers were shuttled by bus from Frankfurt to an airport in Stuttgart, continuing our flight to Rome.

I was in the fifth grade, stranded in a foreign airport with nothing to occupy me for twelve hours. My personal Hell was exceeded only by my parents’: they had to manage my boredom along with my six year-old brother’s, and toddler sister’s, also stranded. Fun times.

From then on, I travel with whatever book I’m reading, and if nearing its end, at least one other book, or more, depending on the planned length of stay. I know books are sold at airports, but I’m unwilling to take a chance on their selection. Problematically, my books take up space, and add weight to my luggage, interfering with my desire to travel light.

The invention of digital readers changed this. I live near one of the best independently owned book stores in America, and I apologize to all small, independent book store owners, but the ability to download books to a slim, lightweight device, and buy more books from virtually anywhere I travel was a game-changer, until last year.

Last year, the hospital  where I work installed a Tiny Lending Library in its Healing Garden.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Tiny Lending Libraries, they’re a thing, with their own organization, and website. The movement began when people built cases, or sometimes simply placed boxes filled with books in their neighborhoods, inviting their neighbors to “take a book, and leave one behind.”

Besides the satisfaction derived from the printed page of a book, the experience of handling a used book left by someone wanting to share it provides a connection to the neighborhood, and the people who live there.

At work, I stop to see what’s on the shelves in the Tiny Lending Library if it’s not already being examined by staff or neighbors. The selection changes often. So far, I’ve borrowed six books, and left twice as many.

Once again, there’s a stack of unread books on my nightstand. I carry the one I’m reading with me to work, in case I have time on my lunch break to read a page or two. Eventually, it will take its place in the Tiny Lending Library.

I wonder how many of the books from the Tiny Lending Library make their way into hospital rooms, carried there by family or friends visiting a patient who is stranded by illness or injury, and worried about not having enough books to read?