【Books to Have and to Hold】一卷在手，书香永留：）

BGM: Memories --Youngso Kim

歌曲推荐：EYE(S)-- LUCY

Books to Have and to Hold

Verlyn Klinkenborg

I finish reading a book on my iPad – one by Ed McBain, for instance – and I shelve it in the cloud. It vanishes from my “device” and from my consciousness too. It’s very odd.

When I read a physical book, I remember the text and the book – its shape, jacket, heft and typography. When I read an e-book, I remember the text alone. The bookness of the book simply disappears, or rather it never really existed. Amazon reminds me that I’ve already bought the e-book I’m about to order. In bookstores, I find myself discovering, as if for the first time, books I’ve already read on my iPad.

All of this makes me think differently about the books in my physical library. They used to be simply there, arranged on the shelves, a gathering of books I’d already read. But now, when I look up from my e-reading, I realize that the physical books are serving a new purpose – as constant reminders of what I’ve read. They say, “We’re still here,” or “Remember us?” These are the very things that e-books cannot say, hidden under layers of software, tucked away in the cloud, utterly absent when the iPad goes dark.

This may seem like a trivial difference, but that’s not how it feels. Reading is inherently ephemeral, but it feels less so when you’re making your way through a physical book, which persists when you’ve finished it. It is a monument to the activity of reading. It makes this imaginary activity entirely substantial. But the quiddity of e-reading is that it effaces itself.

In the past several years, I’ve read nearly 800 books on my iPad. They’ve changed me and changed my understanding of the world, distracted me and entertained me. Yet I’m still pondering the nature of e-reading, which somehow refuses to become completely familiar. But then, readers are always thinking about the nature of reading, and have done so since Gutenberg and long before.

There is a disproportionate magic in the way black marks on white paper – or their pixilated facsimiles – stir us into reverie and revise our consciousness. Still, we require proof that it has happened. And that proof is what the books on my shelves continue to offer.

一卷在手，书香永留

弗林·克林肯伯格

我在iPad上读了本书，比如说艾德·麦克班恩的一本小说。读罢“掩卷”，我就把书“束之云端”了。书从我的阅读器上遁形，也从我的意识中消失。这事儿挺怪。

读纸质书，我会记得文字，也忘不了那本书，书的形状、封面、重量、版式、字样都有记忆。可读电子书，却只记得文字。一卷在手的感觉竟完全消失了，或是说根本就没有存在过。我想下单买书，可亚马逊网站提醒说，我已买过这本书了。在书店，意外发现了一本书，觉得如获至宝，殊不知那书早已在我云端的书架上。

所有这一切都使我对自己的藏书刮目相看。曾经这些书只是静静地躺在书架上，一堆我已经读过的书罢了。但现在，当我从电子书抬头冥想时，却意识到，这些纸质书对我是另有功劳，它们不断地提醒我，这些是我读过的书！它们会说，“我们还在这儿”，或说“记得我们吗？”这些提醒的话电子书是不会说的，电子书藏在软件之下，躲在云端之上，关机后你便一无所有。

这点差别好像微不足道，但是感受却大不相同。没错，阅读本来就是转瞬即逝的，但是当你一页页翻阅纸质书时，阅读的感受却并不那么容易消散，读完后你仍会觉得余感犹存。一本书是阅读活动的见证，它使得这一虚无的思维活动有迹可寻。但是电子书惟其源于数码，阅读后就把自己抹得了无痕迹了。

过去几年里，我在iPad上读了近800本书。这些书改变了我，改变了我对世界的理解，还帮我排遣每日的烦恼，并给我带来愉悦。可是我对电子书本质的认识仍无定见，不知怎么，电子阅读和我总是那么若即若离。但那又怎样呢？读者从来都在思考阅读的本质，早在古登堡以前，读者就开始思考了。

那白纸上小小的黑色文字，或者说电子文字，居然能有那么大的魅力，激起我们的神驰遐想，修改我们的思维意识。然而我们仍需要证据，证明这确实发生过。而书架上那一本本的书一如既往为我作证。

（叶子南 译）