A Reader Gives Thanks

It has become my Thanksgiving custom to revisit this lovely piece of Jeff’s, originally from 2014. I hope it will give you pause to reflect on the gifts of reading in your own life.

There’s a lot I love about reading. Here are a few things for which I am especially grateful:

deckled edges

finishing a book just as the train pulls into the station

seeing someone reading a favorite book in public

a good beginning

a better ending

a mysterious, wistful inscription in a used book

re-reading a favorite and still agreeing with the notes you made in the margins

re-reading an old favorite and shaking your head at how naive you were

french flaps

when the coffee is ready and the light is good and the weather drizzly and there’s nothing to do but read

a bustling bookstore in full holiday swing

acknowledgments that are honest, funny, and humble

remembering and using something you learned in English class

forgetting to bring a book for the plane but then seeing something you really want to read in the airport bookstore

seeing something in your daily life that reminds you of something you’ve read

picking up a classic you’ve been avoiding and loving it

realizing that there are no rules about reading and that no one has the answers

seeing a “notes on the typeface” at the end of a book

knowing that no matter how bad the last book you read was, the next one could be your new favorite