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