The Intimacy of Reading

I've never realized before what an intimate thing a book recommendation was.  You are inviting another person to inhabit a world you once lived in, and deeper still you are giving it your stamp of approval - saying you enjoyed your time there.  Reading, unlike visual arts, is harder to distance yourself from.  The author's words enter your head, whether you like what is being said or not you are allowing it access to a place only you know.  Words flash across your mind,  images are conjured - words and images that are not your own.  Perhaps your brain puts its stamp on the images, but the content is the author's, you are seeing (if they're any good) what they want you to see.

I love books.  I have to always be reading something and my mind functions better or worse depending on how the author's thought process coexists with my own.  The words I sprinkle into my vocabulary in cycles is based upon the books I'm reading at the moment.

When someone recommends a book to me, and I actually read it, I invariably think about that person while I read it.  I see the personality, I try to imagine them reading it.  When I react (good or bad) - I ponder how that person reacted when they first read it.  I also like to talk to the person afterwards and talk about the characters or what part they most enjoyed.  It can be an amazing bonding experience, or it can be quite awkward depending on how you take the book.

For the first time I read a book recommended by someone I don't know, heck, it's the first time I've read a book on any recommendation not given by one of my very closest friends.  A strange feeling.  Journeying into the head-space once occupied by someone who is basically a stranger.  I think it was that bizarre feeling that made me so entranced by the book.  I did enjoy the book, and there being no natural stopping places lead me to stay up all night (until 7:30am) to finish it, but in the end I think it was my fascination with that kind of closeness shared, one-sidedly, with a stranger.  I don't imagine I'll ever get to talk to this person about the book, that makes me a little sad, missing that part of the experience.  But hey, you never know I might just get to have that conversation one day.

No, I'm afraid I am not going to say which book it was that I read, or who recommended it or even why I took their word for it and read it - that's not really the point.  The point is the experience, reading really is a powerful thing.