Kindles, Nooks and Rabbits

You would think the whole concept of the Kindle and, now thanks to Barnes and Noble, the Nook, would thrill someone like myself, who is concerned about the environment. How much greener can you be with a device which holds 1500 books? Think of it—all those paperbacks and hard covers clogging your bookshelves or tucked into milk crates—all magically stored electronically in a thin, easy to care electronic machine. Heck, I could get a whole room back in my house if I invested in this thing. And yet I am very sad, and not just because I am one of those who actually LOVE holding a book, turning and dog-earing pages, scribbling in the margins, getting crumbs stuck in the binder…No, I am thinking about the rabbits.

Yes, I said, the rabbits.

What will my darlings chew on if all my books were to vanish into a hard, metallic slab they can’t even get their teeth into? Where is THEIR joy of shredding pages, nibbling covers (especially on those books one hoped to donate to charity)? Oh sure, you say, they can still have the phone books. But rabbits are fickle. Mine are, anyway. If they could, they would eat all my junk mail (a tempting idea, except the glossy pieces would NOT be good for them). And they do enjoy an occasional novel. Much to my chagrin, I walked into my living room one evening and found that Cocoa had managed to get a hold of a Dean Koontz book I was reading. Cocoa has always preferred horror novels, and he had done such a good job with this book, but I had no choice but give up any hope of reading it. Whole chapters had been torn to bits. So what will my Cocoa do if my future Stephen Kings and Brian Keenes are downloaded into a Nook? And it isn’t just rabbits. What will counter-surfing dogs do if they can’t get a hold of a book to mangle? They will have to go back to sneakers, corn cobs and pantyhose. Not good!!

Some say the Kindle is progress. Without a doubt, it’s a space-saver. For those who travel, there are no more hard decisions to make about what book to bring—just take em all!! Still, I can’t help feeling melancholy that yet another joy in life has been trampled by 21ct century technology. Give me a thick paperback with rabbit chew marks in the corner any day.

The Hoppy Vegan