An Ecologically Unsustainable Post

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to start reading more. For a while, I got into the habit of charging my iTouch, plugging myself in, and tuning everyone else out while I rode the train into Manhattan every morning. Problem was, I would look over at the people with newspapers, those subscription squares falling out of the corners, pages in disarray as the train shoved away from the platform; people with books, trying to balance ever so gracefully, propped up against a pole, or a door, or an unsuspecting stranger, literature in hand (turning pages with puckered lips and wiggling noses). I longed for the days when I was a train acrobat, keeping my eyes steady on the page while my feet did the electric slide into the bibliophile next to me. In fact, I was very surprised by the number of people who were reading in my subway cars. If I had to draw a (very) rough estimate, I would say about 70 percent. Enough to shame me, for sure.

So, I went on BarnesandNoble.com and browsed their books. I gleefully added them to my virtual cart; oh, the possibilities were endless! A Philip Roth novel here, a Gary Shteyngart one there, David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, Margaret Atwood…and then I realized the shipping cost more than my books did. I just couldn’t bring myself to order them. Instead, I opted for Half.com, where I searched for the books I saw on B&N. I sacrificed some shipping dollars to get what I wanted, but a charge of over $3 per book seemed very unjust to me, even though the books came at a fraction of the B&N cost. I do a lot of online shopping because in a place like New York City, where cars are regarded as a luxury/nuisance, getting that Christmas tree, giant crockpot, or large book purchase home…can be close to impossible. Don’t even talk to me about grocery shopping.

However, as I was perusing the beautiful streets of Brooklyn on New Year’s Day with some girlfriends after a delicious brunch, I saw a used bookstore. We scoured this place for 45 minutes. I did the crab walk, trying to read every spine on the bottom shelves. It was so nice to be inside an actual bookstore, with old smells and dust, and even the creepy feeling that seeps into your body when you realize you’re all alone in the back amid tens and hundreds of years of history, and maybe you hear a sound and you turn around thinking it’s a friend, or the man from the counter—but it’s nobody at all. There’s just something about old books that can’t be retold or described. And I just wanted to remind everyone of that feeling.

-Elina is a blogger for The Daily Vine. Check out her bio to see where her view comes from.