What is a Book?

A book is like a painting.

Feelings, ideas, and imaginations are put into both paintings and books. A book is unique. It contains its own material, and holds value. The cover of a book is created to fit the particular book. No two books are alike even if one book may contain the same ideas of another. We say This book is copying this book! but is it? One book may get ideas off of another, but never does it copy the exact content. For example, the book Divergent and The Hunger Games are alike, but not identical. Like a painting. An artist may want to take the idea of another painter but the paintings aren't going look exactly like the other. Even if an artist paints the same subject, with the same medium, he or she will never be able to exactly duplicate another painting. The similar production of the painting may be different by a paint stroke or two.

What's important about a book?

As "Home Word Bound" by Nancy Jo Sales says:

"There's something about the physicality of a book, the way it looks and feels and even smells--the notes written in the margins--that makes it a living, breathing companion."

What makes a book a book is the physical object of it. Holding it, turning the pages, not looking at a screen but the printed words. Looking at a painting through a computer is not the same thing as looking at the actual painting. This is the same with books.

During Tom Piazza's inteview, he say

"Somebody else might have held the book, and valued it. Maybe they made notes in the margin, and kept it and handed it down to their children…I mean, you can give somebody a book; it has weight, it’s a gesture of faith in the future. "

A non-electronic book holds more value. It may have been near and dear to someone, someone famous may have held it, and someone spent time to deliver that book to your house. Each book has a different weight, a different feel, and a different look. Reading books on an electronic device is so repetitive: same screen, same font, same feel. For an electronic book, you just click a few buttons and you receive the book.

What can compare to the physical being of a book?