Post #2: What is a Book?

A book is life. And I believe everyone can agree on that because a book depicts the stories, the lives of others. Even if it's a nonfiction novel, life is still evident with every turning of the page. I don't condemn electronic readers per se, but nothing compares to the beauty of a book. To hear the pages crinkling as you touch them, to smell the mix of ink and parchment, to see the words printed delicately on a page. Having an actually book in your hands adds to the experience, it allows you to truly dive into the pages and live. And unlike Kindles and Nooks, you don't need to charge a book, you don't need to stare at a computer screen, for how can you connect to the story if you can't even feel the words with your own fingers.
"if there's no future for books, there is no future..." Tom Piazzo is correct in stating this. For as I said, a book is life and if they were to be ended, our own lives would be as well. We'd be enslaved to electronics, a void and emotionless source. For a book feels with you. Water blurs its words when you  cry with it; crinkles smudge the edges where you held on in fear with it. Books live the emotion with you, carry them like tattoos; welcomed and permanent.
A book is like a person, it needs you to hold its hand, to read its eyes, and experience its emotions. Face-timing can only go so far, and it's like that with electronic books as well. Like Joe Meno says "They remind us that we exist; they show us how we have lived." There is no better way than that to describe how I feel, for even though books are massed produced like Victor LaValle says, it doesn't matter. The book is an extension of your soul, as you read, you become part of the book and it stays with you. A Nook can break (like mine did), but books, the sure heavy weight in your hands, can never truly leave you. For they live and will continue to do so forever.

Post #1-- Why I Read

"To dream with your eyes open."
From the video I viewed, this really stuck out to me because I 100% agree. Ever since I was a little girl I had always loved to read, if it was reading small stories I wrote to 500 page monsters by brilliant authors. I read because books allow me to escape reality and enter a whole other world like dreams do as well. I find solace in books, a nice break from the never-ending, always jumbling world we live in. Don't get me wrong, my life is awesome, but I think everyone needs to be able to lose themselves in a truly wonderful novel. What's better than that?
Though it may seem like a simple question: why do I read?-- it is the hardest question to answer. It's like asking me: why do I breathe? It is like an innate thing inside me... I HAVE to read. The characters in a book become my family, the villain my own; I cry and laugh alongside them because I can relate to them. Even if it's the most outrageous fantasy novel, books pull me in and allow me to see myself within the pages. I wouldn't be able to function without a book in my hand. Just like we need sleep and dreams; I need to read. That is why I read.