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There is nothing quite so alive as a book that has been well loved. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books
“Books are like people, Ashlyn. They absorb what’s in the air around them. Smoke. Grease. Mold spores. Why not feelings? They’re as real as all those other things. There’s nothing more personal than a book, especially one that’s become an important part of someone’s life.”
“Books are feelings,” he replied simply. “They exist to make us feel. To connect us to what’s inside, sometimes to things we don’t even know are there. It only makes sense that some of what we feel when we’re reading would . . . rub off.”
“What you’re describing is a kind of gift. And gifts are meant to be used. Otherwise, why have ’em?
Psychometry. The term had been coined in 1842 by physician Joseph Rodes Buchanan, and in 1863 a geologist named Denton had published a book entitled The Soul of Things. In short, she was a kind of empath, but for books.
Without a reader, a book was a blank slate, an object with no breath or pulse of its own. But once a book became part of someone’s world, it came to life, with a past and a present—and, if properly cared for, a future.
Dearest, Honor isn’t about blood or a name. It’s about being brave and standing up for what’s right. You, my love, have always chosen honorably. Of that, you may always be proud, just as I am proud of the man I married. —Catherine
Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore? —Henry Ward Beecher
Books were safe. They had plots that followed predictable patterns, beginnings, middles, and endings. Usually happy, though not always. But if something tragic happened in a book, you could just close it and choose a new one, unlike real life, where events often played out without the protagonist’s consent.
She’d grown up believing a person could learn absolutely anything from books, and she still believed it.
We read not to escape life but to learn how to live it more deeply and richly, to experience the world through the eyes of the other.
Restoration is a long and involved business, particularly when the damage is extensive. Progress will be slow. Expect setbacks. Exercise patience. Persist.
He said all truly good writing—fiction or nonfiction—has a heartbeat, a life force that comes from the writer, like an invisible cord connecting them to the reader. Without it, the work is dead on arrival.”
Like people, it is the books with the most scars that have lived the fullest lies. Faded, creased, dusty, broken. These have the best stories to tell, the wisest counsel to offer.
Books may be likened to the people who come into our lives. Some will become precious to us; others will be set aside. The key is to discern which is which.
To read a book is to take a journey, to travel into a vast unknown, to hear the voices of angels both living and dead.
I need to be with you like I need my next breath, but
To lose oneself in the pages of a book is often to find oneself.
As with all rare things, regular restorative care is essential. Chronic neglect may result in weakening, warping, or other persistent vulnerabilities.
“I’m not proposing, Ashlyn. I’m just asking you to keep the door open—and to let me help you carry those bags now and then.
In the happiest times of my life, I have reached for my books. In the saddest times of my life, my books have reached back.
The number of lives we are capable of living is limited only by the number of books we choose to read.
Environment must always be considered. Books, like people, absorb what they’re around.
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
I have always imagined that closing a book is like pausing a film midframe, the characters frozen in their halted worlds, breath held, waiting for the reader to return and bring it all back to life—like a prince’s kiss in a fairy tale.
people’s lives were defined not by the scars they acquired but by what lay on the other side of those scars, by what’s done with the life they have left.
