reading without guilt (buy old books!)
published: (updated: )
by Harshvardhan J. Pandit
books personal
I love reading. That's an understatement. I think of reading as devouring books (like the joy of eating?). For the past few years, I have been hesitant and outright guilty over buying paperbooks because of all the paper and the trees and the ecology (yes, I'm also giving up meat by reducing how much I eat) and so I had a Kindle (upgraded to Paperwhite recently) which I mostly use to read. I like the Kindle, it is an amazing device. But some books are simply more pleasurable when read in hand, there is something inherently physical about it. And old books, yellowed with age, they are like old wine - very tasteful. I don't fathom why this effect exists, and it is a popular effect, but I surrender to it when I cannot help it. To my great joy, I found that used books on Amazon are actually a great deal, and so one particular evening, I ordered a few of them (from my reading list) in hardcover for quite cheap (about 3-4 Euros per book).