The Echo of Old Books

There is nothing quite so alive as a book that has been well loved. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books

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.”

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.

There was something deliciously intimate about opening a book and finding those few scribbled lines on the flyleaf, like being given a glimpse into its emotional life, which had nothing to do with its author and everything to do with its reader.

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.

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.

Beneath each faded jacket and scarred board is a life, a noble deed, a bruised heart, a lost love, a journey taken. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books

I’m a moth in thrall to a chilly flame, lost before the game has even begun.

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. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books