Are Paper Books Starting to Feel Antiquated to You?

I was at my favorite thrift store today, browsing the book aisles, where paperbacks were just 25 cents each. I grabbed a basket and settled in to fill it with several dollars worth of books.

Look, I thought, there's a J.R. Ward I've never read! And a Lisa Kleypas I'd love. I'd never tried Christina Dodd, and the cover for Touch of Darkness, looking shiny and near new, popped out at me. I reached to add it to the pile weighing down my arm.

Gradually, as the basket got heavier and heavier, the idea that I would be buying so much paper, began to feel odd, wrong somehow. The more books I picked up and considered, the fewer I wanted to bring home. Slowly, I began emptying the basket I'd just filled.

I'll just take these six, I decided. No, just these five. I love these authors. I can hardly wait to read them. I whittled the batch down to a dollar's worth, 75 cents, and then finally just two books, one by Gena Showalter, plus the silly yet irresistible Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I want to read these, I thought, I want to.

Finally, I put them back. They felt heavy in my hands. Strange. They didn't have a screen.

At home, I pulled out my Kindle, and downloaded my two favorite picks from the thrift store. Sigh. There. I had my books. All was right and normal with the world.