Now it Feels Real

I’m an old-fashioned girl.  I like books.  Real, honest-to-goodness, paper books.  The heavy kind.  The kind that sit on shelves.  The kind that have a smell to them.  I like being surrounded by them.  They make me feel comfortable and settled and safe.  I find houses without visible books a bit disconcerting.

Given this, I wasn’t all that surprised when the electronic release of the book didn’t quite feel real.  Don’t get me wrong.  It felt good to have it out in the world, and it’s been great to see what people are doing with the patterns.  And really, the reasonable part of me knows that there are all sorts of practical advantages to electronic versions (no dead trees, no shipping fees, instant delivery, super portable).  But I don’t like listening to the reasonable part of me.  The part of me that still longs for a proper Victorian library wasn’t quite satisfied, and that part was louder.

But now?  Now that a stack of them are sitting on my dining room table?  Now it feels real.