OK. I admit it. It is totally true. I am a bibliophile. And I have been one as long as I can remember.

Now before you rush off to your dictionary to look it up, I will tell you what a bibliophile is. A bibliophile is a person who loves books, often to the point of addiction. I am not talking about a person who loves to read, or a person who keeps a selection of favorite books in their home.

For example, if you still have the books you bought as a teenager or younger, the Nancy Drews, the Adventures of Tarzan and similar books, you may be a bibliophile. If you still have your old college text even though they are years out of date, you might be a bibliophile. If you browse the yard sales looking for old books or any book labeled “first edition,” or if you ever paid more than $50.00 for a book because it has a beautiful, gold embossed cover, you are probably a bibliophile. I am guilty of all the above.

Having admitted to my addiction, let me say a few things in its defense. There is nothing that can replace a book. It is true that you can find mountains of text on the internet. There are whole libraries on line that you can download and read off your computer screen. If you are working on a report and need to research the subject, nothing gives you more information more rapidly than an internet search.

But reading from a monitor simply does not give you the feel, the relaxation or the sense of learning like a book. I have spent many quality hours sitting in my reading chair with the lamp over my shoulder and a real book in my hands.

It is true that you can find a television channel that broadcast material on almost any subject you choose. And the visual content of these programs can enhance your understanding of the subject. But you have to watch when someone decides to broadcast the film. If you have to leave during the program, you have to have recorded it, or wait until it comes on again.

With a book, you can read for as long as you have time, place a bookmark at your stopping point and lay the book on the end table to wait your return. Books do not crash. They are never attacked by computer bugs. They never give you a “Page not available” message. Books will be there for hundreds of years if they are properly cared for.

I could give you a long list of reasons to acquire and keep a private library of books. But I do not need lots of reasons. I am, after all, a bibliophile.

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." --Mark Twain