PIXEL MAVERICK

With every hardback book sale that the Kindle kills, a little part of one of my childhood dreams dies with it.

Maybe I watched too many Disney movies as a kid.  You know which ones …for some reason they were all set somewhere in Europe in right before WW2 broke out …whatever the plot of the movie was they live in a massively huge estate that was passed down through the generations and one of the rooms inside of it is this enormous study/ library with thousands of books sitting in two stories worth of bookcases.

That room became the technicolor vision for something I wanted.  It was probably less about the material desire for the items and feel of the room, and more about the aspirational desire on what sort of man I hoped to be by the time I was old and retired …someone who was scholarly and worldly enough to warrant & enjoy this type of room.

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly On the Plains...

So, for most of my adult life I have been going out of my way to purchase hardback whenever I purchased a book.  Slowly collecting the inventory needed to fill a study that would make Professor Higgins, Professor Brown, and Captain von Trapp a little jealous.

I even got my wife excited about this vision and into the effort of acquiring new hardbacks to add to the stockpile (...although there are definitely some concerns about her contributions since the majority of them seem to have pink, white, and light blue frilly colored covers and that is just not aligned with the mental picture).

Things were going according to plan, and then Kindle showed up and things began to fall apart.  Thanks to Kindle, the hardback appears to be a dying breed that will become extinct well before I can reach an inventory necessary of filling even the first story of my dream library.  How am I supposed to be worldly, wear cardigans, and lounge around in my palace of mahogany & leather without any books in it?  Concern level is high at this point.

My only saving grace hope is that The Kindle Effect will create an enormous supply of pre-owned hardbacks and I can go to Amazon.com and buy them all up for pennies per.  Keeping my fingers crossed for that occur.

Until it does …damn you Kindle, damn you straight to HECK!! (there is no cursing in Disneyland)