Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Therapist Takes A Nook

I, Therapist, take you, Nook, to be my E-Reader of choice. To have and to hold, (ok, carry), from this day forward, whenever there are times that the book I'm reading may be heavy or awkward to juggle with my other worldly items. I promise to keep you dry from bath water and your battery charged til death (of your battery or screen life) do us part.
Yes, I have "taken" a Nookicon. I, who never thought such a day would come.
It's not that I don't have friends with E-Readers; I do. And I have tried not to judge them for their purchase, their mad and reckless departure from all that is holy. And...in the end, it turns out that scripture is right on this topic, "judge not lest you be judged", because here I sit, not alone, but with a Nook. I blame Stephen King for my unfaithfulness.
I have written about Stephen before when his new novel UNDER THE DOMEicon came out in 2010. I believe I called it a "tomb" and may have mentioned Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A devout King fan since his infamous THE STANDicon, I was excited to hear that he had written a new novel called 11/22/63icon.

               

Anyone that has been on the planet for a half of century knows exactly what that date is and I was interested to see how Stephen King would write about the assassination of JFK. Bibliophile bought the book for me right away and when I came home from work, there it sat covering up a large portion of my night stand. This is when the first thoughts of adultery came to me. I thought about how I read in the bathtub every night. I thought about reading Justin Cronin's THE PASSAGEicon and the aforementioned UNDER THE DOMEicon...it was in that moment that I knew I would become a cheater. It became quite clear to me that my faithfulness could not bear up under the temptation the Nook presented of giving me ALL of 11/22/63icon in just 7.5 portable ounces. Three days later the Nook and I bathed together with all 897 pages of 11/22/63icon...I fell in love.
I wrote the first part of this when I first "took the nook", (that ended up catchier than I intended), and can now look back on my first three months as an adulterer. It turns out that the nook did not steal all my affections as my reading has been evenly divided between those books I can actually (have and) hold and those that are digitized. I have not deserted my habit of browsing through bookstores and caressing a cover or page. I still fill my "to be read" bookshelf with books of the original variety.
So, what I have found is that my divided affections have actually caused me to read MORE, and that is the real beauty of my new reading partner. Although unexpected, I am quite satisfied with this new, open relationship. I hope my real books understand.

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