"A good book on your shelf is a friend that turns its back on you and remains a friend." ~Author Unknown
Sometimes I buy the books because the titles sound interesting. The Call of the Weird. A Thirst for Rain. Death Be Not Proud. 100 Things You're Not Supposed Know. Or because the covers are eye-catching. Open to a random page. Skim a few lines. If they can write, I buy it. Discarded library books for 50 cents. Books from thrift shops. The occasional designer bookstore purchase when I get a coupon via email. Novels. Cookbooks. Poetry. Once in a while- a self-help book disguised as an instructional manual or revelatory instant classic. I buy them all. Because as long as I have them, there's an unspoken confirmation that my wheels are still turning. The books help oil the machine. As long as I can read- I can make sense of my reality while escaping it. Books by the plentiful pound. Stories about foreign, faraway places and close-up tragedies not unlike my own. The missed train. The tyrant of a mentor. The forced hand. The skinned knee. The inexclusive love. The flood of afterthought that drowns every living and already decayed thing in 20/20 hindsight. The rebirth of spirit. Quiet chaos and triumphs holding hands; riding off into the sunset. Books, quite simply...are my truth when the rest of the world is lying straight to my face.
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