In Praise of the Cheap Paperback

     I admit being an e-book addict. There are three Kindles in my household along with a smart phone on which I occasionally read. E-books are great and e-readers provide a very convenient and distraction-free reading experience. Still, I find myself being drawn to the appeal of the cheap, discounted paperback.
    
     These are the books you can usually find haphazardly thrown into a bin at a discount store, priced at a dollar or two.  My favorite places for cheap books are Big Lots and the Dollar Tree. The selection is eclectic- fiction, history, last year's politics, self-help, religion, etc. I am partial to the fiction which ranges from mysteries and political thrillers to romance novels and historical fiction. Very few of these are big-time, top-ten bestsellers, but they are interesting nevertheless, and usually what I call "mind candy," or books that do not require a lot of intellectual effort and are therefore purely entertaining.


     When I was working on my doctorate and facing massive amounts of dry readings on such thrilling topics as higher education law and public sector finance, I found it hard to keep reading and highlighting the endless heavy textbooks and scholarly articles with itsy-bitsy print, and was tempted to give up on it. After a particularly fruitful book haul at Big Lots, I decided to use the mind candy as a reward. For every textbook chapter or journal article I read, I would take a break and read a chapter of one of my paperbacks. It worked, keeping me motivated and giving me much-needed breaks.
    
     Now that I don't have to think about textbooks and articles (outside of my job, which deals heavily in both), I use my mind candy as a motivator for exercise. I read my little books on the exercise bike, and before I know it a half hour or more has gone by.


     Here are some of the great little reads I discovered:


Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenhalgh


Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen


Critical Mass by Whitley Streiber


Secret Keepers by Mindy Friddle


Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe


A Version of the Truth by Jennfer Kaufman


The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger


The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport


The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan


The Day After Roswell by Philip J. Corso


My Thoughts be Bloody by Nora Titone (this one is an autographed copy!)


The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen


     So why do these little gems have such appeal to me instead of the e-book versions? Well, for starters there is no such thing as an autographed e-book. More importantly, there is still something to be said for serendipity and the very real and visceral feeling of being able to put my hands on an actual object, hold it, flip through it, purchase it, put it in a bag, and take it home. To me there is no comparable feeling.  In spite of the high-tech convenience of e-reading, I still miss the big-box bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders. There will be nothing in the world like the codex format with its ancient pedigree and its continuing relevance. I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way.