All my life I have been in love with books. The smell of paper as pages are turned is one that soothes me. I was the child whose mother would say “go outside and play” which translated to me as “go read outside.” There was always a book in my hand.

After the death of my parents, I found it very hard to read. It was devastating that something so comforting was lost to me. I couldn’t focus enough to get through a single book. A stack of eight different selections stared at me from the bookshelf where they lay collecting dust. I had failed each one of them.

In this digital age one would have thought that I would join the masses listening to audio books or dug into e-books. All my personal publishing life has been 80% digital. My resolve to stay analog was strong. It felt like cheating on a lover to consider digital forms. But at my peak of exasperation in a life without books, I made the plunge.

Audio books changed my life. They gave me literature back. They taught me to focus again. When I didn’t burst into flames listening to one, I thought the concept wasn’t half bad. These volumes of sound were a gateway drug to e-books. I’m here to tell you folks, the struggle is real.

I continue to read a stack of books. Here is my current list: Leaders of the Pack by Sean McLeod, Lanny by Max Porter, Human Hours by Catherine Barnett, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

On e-book, I’m reading The Five by Hallie Rubenhold and on audio book, I am just finishing Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Book 1 by Ransom Riggs.

In the end, I have found a great blend of analog and digital that has me reading more than I ever have before. Sometimes we have to let go of the stranglehold on change and let technology unfold. Had I not opened up I would have missed beautiful opportunities to learn new things.