This is why we all read, isn’t it? To know the world and ourselves better. To find our place in that world. Even if you did have access to readers and guidance on what to read, even if you grew up in a family that loved to read and owned shelves of books, still, still, one day a book falls into your hands—perhaps it’s Beloved or A Wrinkle in Time or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; perhaps it’s Great Expectations or Pride and Prejudice—whatever book it is, it falls into your hands at just the right moment when you need to read it. It transforms you. Perhaps it lifts you up when you are at your lowest; perhaps it shows you what love is, or what it feels like to lose love; perhaps it brings you places far away or shows you how to stay put when you need to.
In a 1966 Paris Review interview, John Updike said, “When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teenaged boy finding them, and having them speak to him.”
I was more than a little east of Kansas, and a daughter of Italian immigrants, but those books on library shelves called out to me too. Thick, beautiful old books. They called out, and I heard them. Gratefully, I heard them.
Acknowledgments
I would like nothing more than to thank every writer who helped me become the person I used to dream of becoming, but the list would be too long and never ending.
Many, many thanks to my brilliant agent, Gail Hochman, who recognized how books had shaped me and urged me to write about that; and to my brilliant editor, Jill Bialosky, who agreed.
As always thanks to all the people at Brandt and Hochman and W. W. Norton who work tirelessly for me. And to Sam and Annabelle, my kids who are passionate readers too and put up with a mom who reads and writes all the time.
And to Michael, ybv.