{"id":2355,"date":"2011-12-06T19:17:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T00:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2011-12-06T19:17:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T00:17:59","slug":"if-heaven-is-a-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2355","title":{"rendered":"If heaven is a library\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Audrey<\/a>
Audrey Niffenegger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a recent event, I was lucky enough to hear a reading from Audrey Niffenegger \u2013 author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.<\/p>\n

She read a short story \u2013 written in response to the closure of a bookshop that she really loves\u2026<\/p>\n

In this story \u2013 she suggested that heaven is a great library \u2013 and when a bookshop closes, its soul goes to heaven to reside in that library. So too do the souls of books. \u00a0And of bookshop owners.<\/p>\n

The reading was great \u2013 she is as good a performer as she is a writer.\u00a0 And the story was funny and poignant and so very appropriate.<\/p>\n

Like Audrey, I love bookshops. There’s something magical about a space devoted to books\u2026 to words and learning and imagination. I’m always sad when I see a bookshop close.<\/p>\n

On her website<\/a>, Audrey says she is not in favor of e-books. \u00a0She is also an artist and a book conservator (I didn’t know that) and she fears that e-books will sound the death of the arts she loves.\u00a0 I understand that\u2026 and in some ways I agree. But at the same time, e-books can make books more available to more readers. Kids who won’t read a paper book will read on their iPad or iPhone. That has to be a good thing.<\/p>\n

So \u2013 if paper books have soul, and bookshops have souls \u2013 does and e-reader have a soul?<\/p>\n

An e-reader can have hundreds of books stored on it. Looking at the list of books on mine, I can see lots of books about finding love. There are books about relationships with families and friends. Quite a few of the books on my e-reader are by authors I am honored to call my friends. There are the classic tales of adventure and imagination by the likes of H G Wells and Jules Verne and a couple of scary books, courtesy of Stephen King. That’s not to mention the crime novels \u2013 I kinda like the odd bit of murder and mayhem. \u00a0There’s non-fiction too \u2013 books of folk tales and legends. Oh yes, there’s a couple of books about music \u2013 and copies of my own books.<\/p>\n

But does the e-reader have a soul in the same way a bookshop has a soul. . Maybe \u2013 the books on the reader \u00a0say a lot about me. They represent hours of enjoyment, some laughter, a lot of thought and even a bit of hard work. There’s imagination and passion and excitement.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not quite a soul \u2013 but it’s something pretty good..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a recent event, I was lucky enough to hear a reading from Audrey Niffenegger \u2013 author of The Time Traveler’s Wife. She read a short story \u2013 written in response to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-BZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}