I read now for the same reasons I read then — to feel less alone. But I read for more than that: Reading teaches me the answers to problems I haven’t had yet, or to problems I didn’t even know how to describe. And when I feel less alone with what troubles me, it is easier to find solutions. A book to me is like a friend, a shelter, advice, an argument with someone who cares enough to argue with me for a better answer than the one we both already have. Books aren’t just a door to another world — each book is part of a door to the whole world, a door that always has more behind it. Which is why I still can’t think of anything I’d rather do more than read.

~ Alexander Chee, from A Velocity of Being, which I found via, Alexander Chee’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Save Us – The Marginalian

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that growing up, it was a 20-minute drive to anything. A true bookstore, or even a public library, was farther still.

But I do distinctly remember the feeling of being among books. At a book store, at my high school’s library, at the closest [small] city’s public library, and eventually at my university’s two libraries. To be honest, I don’t know when last I thought of that feeling, until it bubbled up, just now as I write. The lighting. The sound-scape. The smells. The furtniture. And of course the books. Knowledge and experiences and surprises and questions beyond belief.

(Woa! I just remembered the huge amount of time I spent thinking about one day having a proper study. My own personal library, meets workspace, meets inner sanctum. And I’m reminded that I’m currently obsessed with finding a good chair for reading.)

But it’s all about the books.

Carl Sagan captured it best when we said, “Humans work magic.”

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