Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 22, 2015

I have an enormous library of physical books. So far, I’ve downloaded close to 500 ebooks into my NOOK. I’m familiar with the pleasures of the traditional book, but for convenience and simplicity, nothing beats an eReader full of books. A word to look up? Rest your finger on it and there’s the definition. Need to check a fact, research an author’s claim, get more detailed information? Click over to the appropriate internet resource, find what you need, go right back to the book. Search that stack of cookbooks for an obscure recipe? Oh, please! Just search on “marmite pasta” or whatever. Where among all my shelves is that copy of “Riddley Walker”? Click! Never mind, here’s an ecopy. You say the bookstore is out of the title, the library doesn’t have it, and you need it now? Click. Where in this Bible does Jesus call Herod a fox? Click. Where did I stop reading? The ebook automatically marks itself. Read in any lighting without a lamp? Check. Want it read aloud? Check. Three travel guides to Paris and limited room in the luggage? Want a book that’s been out of print for decades? Or one that never saw physical print, ever? (I’ve got some “complete short stories” collections of authors who only saw print in magazines until ebooks came along.) Yeah, I’m going on and on… but I’ve really just scratched the surface. In the last six years I read better, faster, wider, more, and in greater depth than I did in my first 55 years of reading. P.S., I work in a bookstore.