By Richard Jay Parker
It seems like such a convenient idea at the time. Christmas is coming and you want to see your loved ones' faces light up on the big day. So you go to Amazon and see all those books begging for attention. You buy one and keep it hidden and then watch their reaction when they open it. But what happens after? Some of those books go to a good home where they're loved and cherished and given attention but many of them have a harsh reality to face in the New Year.
Many are neglected before the Croft Original has been stored back in the drinks cabinet or even before the egg nog has gone sour. It doesn't take long before the kids realise how much hard work they're going to be. Often they end up being ignored by the whole family until they become nothing but a nuisance. Eventually they're taken for that inevitable drive and dumped out of sight out of mind.
Christmas is the time when the most hastily bought books end up being unceremoniously disposed of. Abandoned celeb bios, estranged TV tie-in cookbooks, shunned novels and spurned comedy compendiums.
How many ebooks will suffer the same fate? Enthusiastically downloaded but ultimately unloved.
So before you make that purchase think of how the 'that'll do for Uncle Colin' book will very likely spend 2012 - crammed onto a charity shop shelf with all the other waifs and strays.
Remember - a book isn't just for Christmas... Choose with care and you'll have something that may stay with them a lifetime.
Visit Richard at: http://www.richardjayparker.com/
True. But as I get most of my books from a charity shop, it's gluttons pickings for a snip in the New Year. Be assured, they go to a good home and stay there though :-)
ReplyDeleteCaren
Thanks, Caren. Glad to hear there's at least one reader happy to take in all the waifs and strays!
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