"In Defense of the Book" and Holy Bible.

In "In Defense of the Book" Gass expresses that the materiality of the book cannot be reproduced on a screen. Books are a “raw material of facts and thoughts, wood.” They can be reseen, reread, and argued in their margins, unlike words on a screen that can only be remade and relight. I definitely agree with this notion. Like him, I agree that books are not only a history of words, but also a history of travel. Whether it’s a book from a library that has been held by many or a book that is intimately owned by an individual. It will eventually show signs of use and wear. A book will age like us human do. It will be a much slower and prolonged process, but eventually the pages will begin to yellow and curl. The spine will loosen and disintegrate through being opened so many times (or not if it was a rarely used book). The new book smell will spoil or possibly pick up odors it was surrounded by. Also, there is something about collecting the books you’ve read and displaying them on a shelf as your own little library. It shows the history of the books you have read for others to see. People can browse through your collection, comment on a book or even ask to borrow it. You cannot get this sort of interaction with electronic books unless you have an open electronic list on display of the books you’ve read. Or maybe one-day people will have a designated screen for books that would be displayed for browsing like how Netflix, for example, displays their movies.

This leads me to my possession of my Grandmother’s Holy Bible. Almost immediately after receiving this assignment on Monday her bible popped into my head to write about. Twenty-four hours later after receiving this assignment I found out that her 90^th birthday was Monday. Her bible would be about 75 years old now. After my Grandmother passed away my Mother kept it in a draw in our living room. I remember playing with it when I was younger. I would hold it open in my hand and dance and sing as Bell did in the beginning of The Beauty and the Beast movie. Now, that it is in my possession it sits on the shelf of my bedroom desk. I read it occasionally, but since it is an older version of the bible some of the language used is more difficult to understand. As I carefully turn the pages its scent travels to my nose. It smells of her. It smells of my Grandparents’ house. It smells of my Grandparent’s kitchen closet where the green box of crayons and large old fashion roll of paper was kept.