What is a book?

A book is a place to discover yourself while you read about a defined character an author has created. As you read and learn about a character, you find yourself beginning to compare yourself to this figment of the book. Events that happen to this person have happened to you. You share habits. You share traits. You begin agreeing with his/her opinions. You change as you find yourself. As I read Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult, I began to relate to Zoe. She had strong opinions on the result of frozen embryos after a divorce. Do you put them up for adoption? Do they go to the father? The Mother? Do they get destroyed? The whole reason that this was an argument is because Zoe divorced Max because she was homosexual but Max is very religious. Max felt he should have the embryos because living with Zoe and Vanessa, her partner, would result in a bad home life. I agreed with Zoe because she was the biological mother of these embryos so they’d have at least one of their real parents because Max wanted to win the trial and give the eggs to his brother and his wife. I sympathesized for Zoe and just related to her losing friends because of her opinions. Most of my friends that read as often as I do say they find themselves relating to the characters and finding out things about themselves they hadn’t known before. I mean, when I write, my goal is to make the character real so my readers understand him/her and see themselves within them.  

A book on a Kindle, iPad, or Nook is the same as the paper copy sitting on a shelf. It’s the same letters, the same words, the same plot, the same everything. The publishing industry will survive and so will the e-book industry. There are just as many people who like regular books as the e-reader owners. Sales show that regular books are selling more than e-books. I honestly don’t understand this issue.