In an 1815 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I cannot live without books.” Jefferson was a bibliophile par excellence. Indeed his granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph, recalled that “books were at all times… [Jefferson’s] chosen companions.” Over the course of his life, Jefferson amassed no fewer than three libraries. His first collection, started in his youth, was destroyed by fire in 1770.
The second, and largest, ran to 7,000 volumes. This library was sold to the Library of Congress to serve as a basis for rebuilding this national library after its destruction in the War of 1812. Today, many of Jefferson’s books can be seen on display in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. However, the collection is incomplete as many books were lost in a fire in 1851.
It was after this sale that Jefferson wrote his letter to Adams wherein the former expressed his need for books. Jefferson began to construct a new library of his personal favorites. By the time Jefferson died in 1826, this library had grown to around 2,000 volumes. Jefferson was — along with Theodore Roosevelt — one of the best-read presidents that America has ever had.
As far as books go, Jefferson is a man after my own heart. I am an incurable bibliophile. Limitations of space and money prevent me from amassing books on Jefferson’s scale. Yet I have managed to collect over 200 volumes so far. My books are my most prized possessions. I am able to share the sentiments of author and book collector Duncan Fallowell, who said “I can’t stop acquiring books. It’s a kind of necessity. But I’m not guilty about it. Books to me are like oxygen. I am a fish swimming in an aquarium of the intellect.”
My library is quite eclectic: I have a 1903 edition of Alexander Pope’s poems, an 1874 edition of “The Life and Explorations of Dr. Livingstone,” the King James Version of the Bible, Christopher Hitchens’ “Letters to a Young Contrarian,” the complete eight volumes of “The Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” a 1938 edition of Lawrence of Arabia’s memoir and many more. The only common theme is that they are all in a physical copy, and most are even hardcover.
Electronic books do nothing for me. I do not consider the things on e-readers books; they should be physical objects constructed of paper with words or images printed on them and bound together into a volume. A Kindle, or whatever abomination people use now, does not fit that definition. Words upon a lighted screen do not a book make.
My hatred of e-books is not solely aesthetic — although that is a large part of it. There are manifold ways physical books are superior to “screen books.” According to a Huffington Post article from last February, people better connect emotionally with print and tend to retain more of what is read when it comes from physical print. Additionally, e-book readers present a constant distraction from the other ways these viewing platforms could be utilized. Lastly, the bright light that emanates from many e-readers’ screens can upset sleep cycles, especially if the e-readers are used immediately before bed.
It would really be a shame if books were to disappear. Digital media are so much more ephemeral than the printed word. Books survived the advent of recorded sound, film, television and the Internet. It would be regrettable if books finally met their end by the hands of a small, slate-sized contraption.
Fortunately, the Huffington Post article referenced above offers hope when saying “Don’t lament the lost days of cutting your fingers on pristine new novels or catching a whiff of that magical, transportive old book smell just yet! A slew of recent studies shows that print books are still popular, even among millennials.” It really is nice to hear good news for a change. Perhaps bibliophiles — like Jefferson and me — do not have to be worried about their nightmares of a world without books becoming, in the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley, “like life and fear, a dark reality.”
