PRIOR to the internet, Kindle books, social media, Facebook, we read real books. Books we can hold in our hands with real pages one thumbs through; books that are either sold in bookstores, like National Bookstore and Alemar’s (in Metro Manila) or borrowed from libraries. With the advent of new technologies, books can still be read but mostly downloadable; worse, we just google the plot, read the synopsis and voila! — we have the patina of an intellectual and impress women with our “wide reading fare.” Unless the women one intends to impress also do the same — google the plots. In my day (which my son Carlo refers to as “during the dark ages”), to cheat, we read the comic book version of the classics; which means, we may not read the original tomes — Quo Vadis, Two Years Before the Mast, Moby Dick etc. — or if adapted on screen, we simply watch the movie.