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Signature Marks The Spot | Hidden Bookstore Treasures

What We Would Lose | The Meaning Of Books

"People ask me if paper with ever go away. The tangible book. And I say..."

In the time of knights and queens and fairies and dragons. When science was a myth, if even a glimmer in the eye of the stargazer. And magic was in our every breath, step. Laced our thoughts with a sprinkling tingle and a salty grit. Stories lived more in our minds, our tongues and between us. A sharing of experience and idea. Creativity flowed, and true and fiction melded to express our thoughts. Our morals. Our knowledges and our history.


Was truth more true then than now?


The fire crackled and burned to ward off the night and its lurkers. Our children drooping from the day of activity. Of living more outdoors than in. Toes and fingers in the dirt. Muscles built from activity, beyond chores. Learning craft. Skills. Apprenticeships, and grandmother traditions.


The turn of the seasons. What it felt like when the winds changed, a storm. The prickle of sunshine on drying skin, or of something watching with interest, possibly ill-gotten intensions.


Building with hands and tools. But tools from hands that came before. Forged by those hands or others. Skill and knowledge passed and built up. Creations from creativity. Creations from ideas. Creations inspired by the world around.


Creations you can touch and feel. Interact with. Put down and pick up. Can hand it down or gift. Share with others. Revisit yourself.


The energy and life of that creation, from item to building, tool to toy, it’s life–it is contained within the very essence of its being.


And not just the finger smudges and the hand-sanded textures from constant use. The seams patinaed with dust from protection on a high shelf. Color bleached from exposure, a missing button eye mother had carved. The nick in the horn knife from the first buck great grandfather had ever felled as a boy. The years, the connection. The value of one thing.


The memories held in time.


…and now…


People ask me if paper with ever go away.


The tangible book.


And I say no.


So much of our world now is separate and disposal. Of non-tangible. Pre-created items made in replicated mass with a gnat’s shelf-life and a destiny pointing to a landfill.


And the eBook.


eBooks are without substance, or interaction. The emotional journey of a story is lost in the black glass and durable plastics of the flat reflective device that’s traded out every couple of years for the new shiny.


All touch memory lost.


And was it ever there?


The trend is changing though.


Special editions are seeing a wave of popularity again. If you get a book in paper, its additionally something special. Craft. Creativity. Care and energy in the creation of an item is coming back.


Yes, people still buy a reading copy and then keep the pretty one to look amazing on the bookshelf. But they are being kept. And treasured. Remembered.


For a reason that is held within its pages. And not just the words.


Dear reader.


I miss the times of storytelling where as a child I asked to turn the page. Put my smudge of peanut butter from my lunch that day. Drool and dirt from the tennis ball I had tried to throw for my golden retriever who’d pranced in excitement, then forgave my tiny arm’s inability to throw it much past my own toes.


Touch memory.


Holding onto those books not just because my memory of the story itself that I loved. Or my mother reading it to me. But also for the essence of my childhood imprinted on its very pages. An arthritic finger pad gentle-petting the darkened Jiffy smear. The tennis ball grit still pasted to the page.


My favorite food. My childhood pet.


Proof of existence.


That really happened.


Touching the past like it was now. Tasting and throwing and feeling that moment again.


No. If we can, we will hold onto our books. The live ones. The real ones.


The ones we can lend and share and remember with.


I hope I am right.


I think so much would be lost if we did.


I think we would lose ourselves.

Stephanie Writt

Writer, instructor, graphic artist and all around lovely soul, with a generous sense of humor  (yes, I am totally writing this myself), takes delight in sharing her geeky knowledge and ridiculous joy in reading, writing and business. As the current Director of Operation at WMG Publishing Inc., she has the privilege and mischievous pleasure in writing this blog every week. 

Stories To Fill Your Bookshelf

Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Issue #36

Edited by Dean Wesley Smith


The Cutting Edge of Modern Short Fiction


A three-time Hugo Award-nominated magazine, this issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine offers up ten fantastic stories by some of the best writers working in modern short fiction.

No genre limitations, no topic limitations, just great stories. Attitude, feel, and high - quality fiction equals Pulphouse.

Includes:
“The Snow Shoveler,” by Robert Jeschonek
“Eaten,” by Mike Zimmerman
“Popcorn for Christmas,” by O’Neil De Noux and Debra Gray De Noux
“The Silent Hour of Christmas,” by Kathryn Kaleigh
“ May the Anvil Ring,” by Jason A. Adams
“Merry Microbes,” by Mary Jo Rabe
“Incredible Christmas Capers,” by Joslyn Chase
“The Old Guitar,” by Annie Reed
“Holy Ghost Snake,” by David H. Hendrickson
“Ugly Sweaters and the Year-End Circus,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Minions at Work: Dive Right In,” by J. Steven York


The Incident at Serebro Academy

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

THE FEY ATTACK

A grisly ambush at Serebro Academy starts a race to uncover secrets that might save the Academy or destroy it entirely.


Magical maps, Fey spies, treachery and dangerous secrets. A stunning fantasy—impossible to put down.


This thrilling page-turner continues Rusch’s masterful melding of epic fantasy and steampunk while demonstrating once again her place as one of the greatest storytellers of our time.


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