Things Mo Likes #3: Ranting About Books.

There’s bodily form in books. They have faces, sometimes featureless and matte, other times shiny and textured. They have spines that crinkle and crack from overuse. When you open their pages, their guts spill out in the form of typeface.

Books are the true loneliness chasers. Their pages are soft and welcoming, the black print reassuring. When you place an open book page down against your chest, it almost feels like it’s holding you. There is a symbiotic relationship happening between the reader and the book. The reader, wanting the knowledge and the book needing a home for the knowledge it longs to give.

Or, the book could just be giving you a squeeze, a miniature embrace. Favorite books seem to do that very well. Like people, they get under your skin, breaking down every defense. They find a way to dwell inside you, and make a home for themselves. But instead of taking things away from you, like a parasite, it adds to you, warming you, making you feel more whole.

Every time I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s like romping with a lost love. I’m up all night with it, supporting it over my face, or bracing it on its back. I know exactly how far to bend the spine before it gives. And when I run my fingertips over the cover, and I close my eyes for a minute, it almost feels like skin.

Originally posted on Facebook, August 19th, 2009