i push books.

I really like books. Not just reading them, but they way they smell, feel, and the atmosphere they put in a room. Just ask my poor mother who has been dealing with my enormous book collection for years now. Books add something to my life in a way I just can't explain; they make me happy, nostalgic, and hopeful at the same time, and they have for as long as I can remember. For this reason, I push books. Some people may push drugs, alcohol, but I highly encourage the ingestion of books.


El Ateneo bookstore in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Kindle, MacBook, and iPhone as much as the next modern twenty-something girl, but I think it is important to not let the role of the book fall by the wayside. Books hold so much - history, adventure, knowledge - and when we forget that we lose something. There are some books that you won't find digitally - and these are the books we cannot forget. Remember your favorite book that your mom read to you when you were little? Would it have been the same on an iPad? I think you can safely say no. There are also so many amazing books that tell you about culture - pick up an Emily Post book from the 1940s. I mean, isn't it cool? You can see how your grandparents thought and what they learned. In the same way your kids will pick up Harry Potter and learn something about you, you can learn something from an old book. Now you should take this with a grain of salt. I do (gladly) get paid to work in a library. This is actually the fourth library and/or archives I have worked in during my life. I mean, I was such a nerd that the summer after 6th grade I spent time volunteering at a library. But, I love them because they have books, which for me are really a portal to experience something different outside my hectic life. So the next time you read something online or on a Kindle, or hell, even on this blog, take a moment to remember what inspired writers for centuries, and what still inspires me, and perhaps you, today.