Open Thread: How Do You Use Books?
As a Technology, Books Have Endless Uses. What Are Yours?
Books are extraordinary tools with a fabulous range of uses. We can, for instance, use them to think and feel. We might reach for a novel and discover that it helps us process some emotional difficulty, that it serves as a form of catharsis. During the same day, we might also consult a nonfiction, public-affairs title to help us analyze and argue some facet of current events: tariffs, government debt, AI, and so on.
We can use them for surprisingly different things and use them in widely different ways. Just think of the range of books you might have on your shelves right now: history, memoir, literary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, economics, poetry, how-to, art, murder mystery, biography, cookbooks, travel writing, theology, self-help, true crime.
And we might use them all for different ends: research, relaxation, escapism, consolation, inspiration, instruction, provocation, companionship, transformation. We can use books to remind us, to inform us, to train us, to challenge us, convert us.
Beyond the uses to which we put our books there’s how we use them. We can read closely, listen intently, scan, riffle, dip in, linger long, skim backwards, jump ahead, return obsessively, hurl across the room, abandon halfway.
We can read while we sit, lounge, walk, bathe, and other things. We can read them at tables and desks, on park benches, or during commutes, under evening lamps. We might write and underline, fold and dogear. We might hold them gingerly or handle them roughly. One book may not get the same treatment as another. We might cram one in a backpack, while another we hope to keep in pristine shape.
There are roughly as many uses and ways of using as there are readers. That’s partly why I wrote The Idea Machine—to capture some of those uses on a historic scale to we can see how books have helped shape us.
So, I’m curious, reader (because of all things I know about you, that much seems certain): How do you use your books?
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I use books as a shield against boredom, often carrying around an unwieldy stack, stuffing too many in my suitcase case, adjusting my driving habits so they don’t slide across my dashboard. Books give me something to look forward to. People in my books keep me company and inspire me. Through them I can relate, coming to understand two opposing perspectives on the same civil war. Books allow me to remotely access minds across time, place, and culture. Reading frees me from old roadblocks, like an icebreaker cracking through previously impenetrable barriers. Without books I would be much more alone. Books are a technology full of dynamism and liberty.
I love reading your interviews where you end with the question of having lunch with three people of your choice. Time and language are not barriers.
Books are my lunch conversations with groups of people. Inside my head, they interact with each other, while I introduce them to each other.