People all around the world are raving about the Kindle or Kindle for iPad. They get unbelievably excited about reading a book off a bright LED screen, and it makes me want to cry.

Yes, the Kindle is helping reduce the amount of trees being cut down for paper, but the batteries they use will eventually die. Those dead batteries, when thrown away, will be sent to a landfill or be buried underneath some great big hill, or be disposed of by shooting them far away into the freaking space-time continuum.

But when I see someone reading on a Kindle or (please no!) have someone recommend I use one, it is completely horrifying. I do not want to read my books on a computer-ish thing. I would rather blind my eyes and start reading in braille than start using an electronic book.

I love the feel of a book; the soft or stiff pages turning perfectly to unleash more knowledge with every yearning glance. One of my most favorite (a bit oxymoronic, no?) places in the world is Barnes & Noble. I can sit there for hours reading about music or young adult fiction or comic books. I can sit for hours, just reading.

The other day someone asked me, “How can you read for fun? It seems like such a waste of time.”

And I looked at them, in their own bored stupor, and I thought, ‘How am I wasting my time, broadening my mind by absorbing the written word, while you, in all your highness, just sits there, swatting flies and staring into space. How am I the one wasting my time?’

But I just smiled softly and shook my head. The people who wrote these books had something to say, and I am more than glad to listen.