I keep reading that with the continued explosion of the electronic age, books will likely become extinct. I, too, read on my iPad and text on my iPhone, but still have an intense affection for bound books. A neighbor recently walked through my house, pausing to ask quizzically, “You still have books. Why?”

I actually have an unnatural relation to some books. Ones that moved me or caused me to think about, or realize things, I didn’t know. I remember visiting the Pierpont Morgan Museum in New York a few years back. They had a Gutenberg Bible and countless priceless works. What grabbed my attention, though, was an early (1790’s) volume of Goethe’s Faust on display. It was labeled “Napoleon’s copy,” and had French notes scrawled in the margin. I pictured the general reading by a campfire as he marched to Moscow. What was he thinking as he pondered the printed words? His DNA is on the pages. A book is an historical artifact and tells a story of the reader, as well as what is on the printed page.

A study of the last millennia lists the invention of the printing press as the most significant event, ahead of splitting the atom and the discovery of the new world. I’m sure electronic media will have the same rank in the perspective of history. But for me, holding a bound book and slowly savoring its contents, remains one of life’s purist pleasures. Electronics pass information, but cannot compare with the experience of a real, bound book.