A recent article from the New York Times Sunday Book review discusses one of those questions that will interest avid readers: what have you found between the pages of a book? From pieces of bacon the smashed corpses of unfortunate insects, you never really do know what you'll find.
It seems a silly thing to write about, but it points me to an aspect of what I love about reading. A book is more than ink arranged carefully on dead trees. A book has a kind of life all its own. When you open the pages of a book it is an open canvas. You can highlight, underline, circle, mark, scrawl...whatever you like. There is something fascinating about opening another person's book, perhaps one you've read and enjoyed, to see how they have interacted with it. Have they circled what you've circled? Have they read it carefully at a desk, preserving the spine to the best of their abilities? Or have they read it at the breakfast table, laying it flat, scrawling notes amidst fingerprints and residue of bacon and eggs?
It's amazing just how personalized books become as they become ours.
