Words. Books.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.

These words streamed from the voice of Patti Smith when she accepted the National Book Award for nonfiction last week, for Just Kids, a memoir of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City’s 1970s art scene.

We may think of a book as low-tech. The combined technologies of the printing press and paper mill created an utterly simple and useful object we often take for granted. As Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos said, “The book just turns out to be an incredible device.”

Open one of those incredible devices over this holiday weekend. Give thanks for books.



—Julie