Far be it from me to cast cold water on the advances of technology that this modern age has blessed us with. However I read a simply ghastly article recently that claimed jubilantly that the age of the book is dead and that the age of E-books and Kindles doth shine like a beacon upon us.
In a word, horrors!
What a BEASTLY idea! Now, I appreciate a good E-book as much as anyone but I think to claim that the birth of this creature is the death of the honest-to-goodness hold in your hand kind of book with-real-pages-that-flip is TOO much.
Anyhow, this article got me to thinking about all the useful things one can do with REAL books and I have listed them for your edification (or amusement) as follows.
A REAL book can make a very useful placemat for a steaming cup of coffee. This is a prevalent point to me because my mother has so many pieces of antique furniture that must not have their surfaces profaned by the base of a hot mug. If it were not for books-that-go-flip I would frequently have to go traipsing off to the kitchen to get a saucer every time my mother shrieks “OH Tiffany! NOT on my Kauri sideboard!” And who need that kind of unnecessary exercise? Certainly not me! I’m a sedentary author people, not an Olympic walker!
Then there’s the SHOWING OFF quality of books-that-go-flip. My beloved father is a bright man but his brilliance resides in science rather than linguistics. He knows one (and only one) sentence of New Testament Greek (quoted proudly on every unfortunately long road trip we’ve ever been on) but you would never guess it to look at his study. It is loaded to the hilt with HUGE books-that-go-flip, bound in leather and trimmed with gold.
And that leather and gold brings me to another argument for books-that-go-flip. Décor, people, décor. My mum reads even less Greek that Dad but she loves those luscious books of his and displays them with pride in an elegant bookcase (another thing I’m not allowed to rest a mug on).
Indeed, the list for WHY you ought to still buy books-that-go-flip is so long I might as well just bullet point the rest of them. So here goes…
• They make a much more interesting alternative to reading the back of that aerosol can in the bathroom when you must (ahem) linger.
• You can use them to gently discipline your children (“now darling, for putting a snail in your violin teacher’s tea you must dust ALL of Daddy’s Greek books”).
• They make handy emergency legs for sofas broken in overseas shifts (done that a few times!)
• You can throw them at your brothers when you catch them using your tooth brush to clean out a drain (again Daddy’s super heavy Greek books do the trick best).

Yes the list of uses for books that go flip is so lovely and long I have to conclude that although E-books are great, we’ll still see the good old fashioned paperbacks and hardbacks turning up in homes. I certainly hope so… I doubt a Kindle would stand up to having a hot mug sat on it!!!