physical spaces in all states of maintenance are by necessity temporal spaces; we orient
Time is a background-level context that we assume is there.
there are some spaces – and indeed, some object – that we perceive as more temporally-laden than others, regardless of whether or not those spaces and objects are in a state of ruin
Books are another object that we tend to perceive as temporally-laden
books have time, and the reasons for this have a tremendous amount to do with our cultural history of books and what books are.
Books exist within these spaces; books are also of these spaces. Contemporary mass-market paperbacks aside, the default quintessential Book is old, hard-bound, possibly large and heavy, frequently dusty
It took a lot of time to make books, and books themselves contained a lot of time within them as part of their content. Though none of the books we read now are produced in that way, the past of books still works to shape our present imagining of them.
When we hold an ereader, we are aware – if only subconsciously – that time is not there in the same way that it is with a dead tree book. It doesn’t connect to all the temporally-laden ideas of Bookness that we carry around in our collective cultural memory.