Printed books still matter

Books are a storehouse of knowledge. They are our best friend, philosopher and guide. What is more, one can never feel lonely in the company of books. They are a great source of enjoyment, recreation and knowledge. In recent years, PDF (portable document format) books, however, have become popular for their availability and low cost. But in many people's experience, it has been seen that they tend to forget quickly what they read in the PDF version. And they can remember better when they read a hard copy of the book, touching the pages and marking them.

Actually, reading hard copy of books involves one's labour and time. Maybe after searching for long, or after looking for a long time, one manages a hard copy of the book. So, there remains a love for the book. And readers remember the content better. It is time to go back to the habit of our older generations. Let there be libraries set up by the people of the neighbourhood. Let there be festivals of reading books. Let us make the price of books in traditional format as low as possible so those are affordable to the poor and middle class people. We should resume our habit of reading books printed on paper.

MA Islam,

Dhanmondi, Dhaka