Ana Hein // Blog Writer
Because I can run my hand down their spines in the bookstore and peace falls over me. I imagine all the people that have also read this book and wonder what they thought about it: if they loved it or hated it or don’t even remember having read it in the first place.
Because I can hold an object in my hand that I can turn over and bend and crease and fold and mark up at my leisure.
Because I have an excuse for staying up too late.
Ana’s Bookshelf (1 of 2)
Because I adore looking at them on my shelf in whatever configuration they happen to find themselves in that particular day. I can rearrange them whenever I get bored: by author, color, genre, height, or wherever they happen to fit.
Because I sound smart when I bring them up.
Because I sound smarter than I actually am when I say how many books I’ve read.
Because I love the sound of words on my tongue, even when they aren’t mine and I don’t say them out loud.
Because they are beautiful objects.
Because hearing a friend tell me that the book I lent them was exactly what they needed in that moment makes my heart warm.
Because I know telling a friend that the book they lent me was exactly what I needed in that moment will make their heart feel warm.
Because I get into arguments about how my interpretation of events is the correct one with people whom I deeply respect but are wrong.
Because sometimes I forget I’m even reading at all.
Because I didn’t have many friends growing up, so I had to find my solace with the characters sandwiched between card stock flaps, and that was fine with me.
Because I want to find transcendence.
Because I can tell a lot about a person based on what books they read.
Ana’s Bookshelf (2 of 2)
Because I love the idea of having a library that will contain thousands of books that will be stacked on my bedside table, falling off of shelves, and on every available surface of the house by the time I die.
Because they make me feel less alone.
Because they make me feel.
Because my ideal date is going to a café and then a bookstore. It becomes a great date if he buys me a book.
Because they smell like history and possibility, ink and paper, and it’s intoxicating.
Because I get to inhabit a life just as complex and emotionally full as my own that may not even be real.
Because I want to create my own book someday.
Because I’m good at reading and analyzing them.
Because sometimes I open up a book I haven’t read in many years and am greeted by the remainders of the person I was when I first read it. She is a person I may not be anymore but can still recognize by her comments and doodles in the margin, and I get to remember her, even if I disagree with her opinions on Adrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood.
Because they are statements of permanence, marks of art and self that will forever exist in the world.
Because they make for good conversation starters.
Because I feel like I’m participating in some unspoken grand tradition when I read a good book, like I’m contributing to the history of art and importance by witnessing it.
Because I just do.