Hardeep Singh Kohli: For my mum, who had a frugal childhood, books were as precious as gold

It would be a lie to say that I have read more than perhaps a dozen or so of the poems anthologised in a book that exceeds 1000 or so pages. But I have read her inscription at least two dozen times; a resolute reminder of the faith of friendship, the loyalty of love.

I’m old-school when it comes to books. I like an actual book. Actually, I love books. Tomorrow sees the beginning of Book Week Scotland, a national celebration of all things literary. There is no shortage of ways to get involved, no excuse not to engage. You can attend a reading lunch with like-minded literature lovers. If that’s too taxing why not head up tae Lochgelly to hear the inspirational Judy Murray talk about her memoir Knowing The Score? Failing that, you can vote for your favourite book-inspired song. (My current top tips are Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush and the utterly bonkers but brilliant Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins, sung by none other than Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.)

Books have always held a special place in my life; that’s down to my mum. Though now mired in the milieu of the middle classes, I am the child of immigrants. My mum, born in Nairobi as part of the Indian diaspora in Kenya, led a frugal life as a child. She lost her mother very young and my grandfather struggled to keep his four kids on his own. Books, for my mother, were as precious as gold; to this day I can recall her berating my brothers and I if we ever left a textbook on the floor of our rooms. It was clear from her reaction to our entitled ways that to her, books really mattered. I reckon this must be because she grew up with very few books around.

It shows how far we have come, as a family, that the son of a woman that had so few books finds himself surrounded by them; piles of books; everywhere. (But never on the floor.) It seems yet more remarkable that this son of a woman that had so few books would one day end up being a judge of the Mann Booker Prize. I wonder if I could have attained such an honour had my wee mum not instilled in us such a profound respect for books?

Just as reports of the death of Mark Twain were “greatly exaggerated”, so too are reports of the digitally designed demise of books. A decade ago, the Kindle was released. It was hailed as a game-changer; the reading of books would never be the same. Imagine, the ability to carry the entire works of Burns, Ian Rankin and Agatha Christie on a single, slim, stylish gadget? Ninety-thousand books in your jacket pocket. Astonishing. The Kindle captured the collective imagination and the first batch sold out in little over five hours. In 2011, Amazon announced that sales of digital books had for the first time overtaken their print counterpart; the difference was some 15 per cent. It seemed as if a reading Rubicon had been crossed.

Yet while the ninth-generation Kindle was recently launched in the UK, the divined domination of digital hasn't happened. Last year the UK Publishers Association reported that sales of physical books had risen to a five-year high, accounting for £3bn of what is a £4.8bn market. During the same year, e-book sales dropped by 3 per cent; this was the second consecutive annual fall in sales.

I’m sure it must be great to be able to have all 10 of Val McDermid’s Wire In The Blood series on an e-reader for your fortnight in Andalucia; the mode of reading doesn’t change the quality of the book. But you cannae inscribe an e-book; giving it as a gift feels all too impersonal; and you cannae turn down a page corner to remind yourself of some beautiful writing. My E.E. Cummings is turned down at page 169.

“The mind is its own beautiful prisoner.”

And I’ll always want my mind imprisoned in a book.