Post 2: What is a book?

Posing the question ‘What is a book?’ is sort of like asking ‘What is the meaning of life?’ or ‘What is one moment of your life that changed who you are?’ It’s one of those stupid nit-picky questions that gets under your skin and forces you to spit something intellectual-sounding out. I look over at my classmates screens and see them furiously typing away their answers to this mind-blowing question. Probably saying how deep and meaningful books are to them blah blah. Meanwhile, I’m here struggling to even form a sentence that completes a coherent thought. I always make answering these questions more difficult than they need to be and that’s because I refuse to give into the norm. I'm just a stubborn angsty teenage girl, what did you expect. Not really though, I’d like to be held to a higher standard.

So what is a book? I cannot pin-point an exact word to describe a book so I’ll just give a few examples of what a book is to me. A book is something you can enjoy no matter what the weather outside is. It is the perfect gift for anyone, even if they’re illiterate! They are the second leading cause to the cuts on my hands, following cat bites and scratches. Books are like a little gift from a stranger, the stranger being the author. One day, maybe you’re browsing the book store and you come upon a book that you think looks interesting. You buy it and take it home to read. Suddenly you've fallen in love with everything that this book has to offer, the characters, the plot, the way the book smells, and now the real world has no real meaning to you. Everything in your life becomes dull and gray and you find yourself slowing transforming into Gollum from Lord of the Rings, hiding your ‘precious’.  Your parents become worried and suddenly you’re in a mental hospital. All because of a book.

Okay…maybe books aren't that big of a deal, but they kind of are. To quote Nancy Jo Sales on her perspective of books “They remind us we exist; they show us how we have lived”.  Even if you don’t like reading, you are forced to. Unless in the near future, everything becomes audio read to cut down the painful task of tracing your eyes over words. Let’s hope nothing like that ever happens.

But in all honesty, books are something I've come to rely on again. (Yes I say again because I've just come back from a book hiatus lasting my sophomore and junior year. And boy does it feel good to be back!) Books help me pass the time and enjoy the simple things. They’re so great and I don’t know what I’d do without them. 

Well technically without ever living with them, I wouldn't know what it’s like to live with them. But you get what I mean right?