The emergence of e-books and the resultant boom in self-publishing has changed the writing world. Some think this is a change for the better. Some worse. I am not really interested in getting into that right now. What I am curious about, and what no one seems to talk about, is the change it has had on the reading world.
When I was young, books were my salvation. I needed escape and books were there for me. I read them…don’t think I ever stopped mid-book…even if they were not that great. It didn’t matter. Once I had started a book, I felt compelled to finish it. I folded down the corners of my favorite pages. I wrote things in the margins. I drew pictures of birds (I was a bird freak). I made the books mine. To this day, the first thing I do with any book I get is write my name in it. It is mine. And I make it mine by the song lyrics I write on the blank pages, the passages I underline, etc.
