The Echo of Old Books

by Barbara Davis

“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.”

She’d also done a bit of sleuthing. With Frank’s help, she had discovered that there was an actual name for what she’d experienced. 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.

She’d read a lot of inscriptions over the years, some sweet, some funny, some so poignant they’d brought tears to her eyes. There was something deliciously intimate about opening a book and finding those few scribbled lines on the flyleaf, like being given a

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. That life force remained with a book always, an energetic signature that matched its owner’s.