We read constantly online and understand less and less. Books counter the incessant digital noise with their quiet power—hence they are indispensable. A call for reading beyond mere browsing.
Wolfram Weimer, State Minister for Culture, recently faced a wave of criticism when he initially refused the expansion of the German National Library in favor of digital archiving. Although he has since signaled that the expansion could be realized, this sparked a debate about the role of books in a digital world.
It is not about a lack of text and information. On the contrary: we live in a present where thousands of words bombard us every day. We cannot escape them when we look at our smartphones, while the radio and television are on in the background, neighbors involve us in conversation, our best friend sends us a voice message lasting several minutes. Podcasts, posts, comments, emails, the latest news—everything is there instantly, always, everywhere. This at a time when something important remains crippled: the experience of genuine engagement with a thought.
Books do not fall prey to this rhythm. They require time. Simply by their nature, they demand attention. They have a weight, are larger than smartphones, pages cannot be swiped away with a finger, and they do not need batteries, nor any power source, to reveal their content.
"The first league of design" Author and cultural scholar Frank Berzbach describes the special relationship between people and books in his essence "The Art of Reading": "Books belong to the first league of design (...). They caress the hand when touched, they are a pleasure for the senses. They have a scent, a texture, we react to them with an aesthetic feeling."
What exactly is this feeling? What captivates us about books? It is not just the story read within them. It is the package as a whole. To hold a real book in your hand, to feel it—some pages are so thin that simply turning them becomes a sensory experience—when you smell it and notice it, reading turns into an exclusive pleasure. Because in the moment we reach for the book, we pause. And we reserve what we now often perceive as a luxury: time.
Conscious enjoyment It is comparable to a vinyl record: when you carefully take it out of its sleeve, place it on the turntable, gently lower the needle, and listen to the light crackle before the first notes sound—this allows us to perceive the music more consciously than when a playlist is streamed through a Bluetooth speaker.
"In an era of calculated television series scripts and endless electronic games, reading a classic 19th-century novel is revolutionary," is written in "The Art of Reading." When you read these words, the idea of reading Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" or Theodor Fontane's "Effi Briest" seems almost out of place. The beauty of the language, the choice of words, the sentence structure take us back to a time when the world was quieter than today, life moved more slowly, and thoughts had more space.
But contemporary novels cannot be read in passing either. It is almost like a waste to read them hastily while waiting in line or between two meetings. The same applies to non-fiction books that convey well-founded and carefully researched knowledge. No algorithm interferes, no digital feed distracts you, no notification interrupts. A book does not involve us in discussions we do not wish to have—as happens with a random Instagram post. And therefore, books are also places of silence.
Libraries as places of spirituality Just as libraries are conceived. When you enter one of these book temples, you are surrounded by a special silence. Soft whispers, low voices, the rustling of book pages; occasionally someone moves a chair, a floorboard creaks. There is a characteristic scent.
You immerse yourself in a world that seems to have stopped. And together with all the others browsing old and new books, magazines, or photo albums here, you create a small, close-knit community. A community of those who believe they can find more answers here than on the internet. Seen in this sense, libraries are also places of spirituality.
Mirrors of our personality You can take this experience home with you, to your bookshelf. There, we see not only colorful covers but also traces of our thoughts and development. Over the years, a very personal order is created from well-thumbed paperbacks, carefully selected new editions, and long-forgotten finds. Books that have shaped us. That we have read several times. Or that still await being read to the end. Perhaps this is the biggest difference with the digital world: a book does not disappear, it remains. And one day you pick it up again—out of curiosity, nostalgia, or simply because it is there. Author Frank Berzbach expresses this in a simple sentence: "He who lives with books always has a home."