Why Read the Book?

Abstract

I was having a conversation at the local coffee shop this past week with my friend, Reuven. He reads books, and after opening pleasantries—“How are you?” (“Fine. And you?”); “What’s new?” (“Ah, not much. And with you?”); “Watch the game?” (“No, I’m not a big sports fan!”)—we talk about books, and in the course of that discussion, other aspects of our lives inevitably open. I know that what and how we read are topics intimately reflective of our personal lives, and that to talk about our choices of reading revealingly opens a window onto our intimacies. And though I recognize that as we are certainly more than what we eat, and I acknowledge that we are more than what we read, I have been considering that there is an intimate connection between our reading and our selves, and that what rests on a person’s bookshelf (metaphorical and otherwise) tells a significant story about the character of that person. When I inquire, “What are you reading?” I also ask, “Tell me who you might now be and are in the process of becoming.” “Camerado!” Walt Whitman calls to me in his poem “So Long”: “This is no book. Who touches this touches a man.” Reading engages us in relationships, and we are always changed by these intimacies. And I believe that it is also true that to touch the man or woman is also to understand what books he or she touches. To touch oneself is to touch the book that is held. I am writing a book about some of the books I have touched. Who touches this book touches a man.