Good Things About Good Books

The pleasure of reading them

They inspire you

You can borrow them for free, if you get them from the library

You can buy them and keep them

They can have great covers or design

People pour their whole hearts into writing them

They can make you think about things you’ve never thought about

They can be the thing that makes you change your life

You can reread them

You can take them with you when you travel

You can talk to people about them

You can read what you would have written if you knew how to write like that

They can make you smarter

They can put you to sleep, if you read them when you’re tired

They don’t take up too much space (unless you have a lot of them or if you have to move house and put them in boxes)

They can make you see the world differently

They can make you a better person

They can help you heal, if there is pain that you have

You can read them in the bath

You can leave them lying around the house so they’re ready to start reading again when you get to that spot (the table, the bathroom, on your desk, next to your bed, on the bench, on the coffee table, on the edge of the couch, on the mantlepiece)

You can reborrow them if you run out of time to read them

You can read them years later and it’s like you haven’t read them before

They are like companions, comforts and children if you don't have children

They can make you feel like everything is going to be ok

They wait for you to read them, patiently

They can lift your thoughts above the ordinary, the domestic, the seen and felt and heard

They can tell you history, map the future, explain the now

You can sort them into categories and corral them

You can read bits out loud to someone

You can save them up and look forward to reading them

They can save you money, if they teach you things you would have paid to learn

They keep getting written

They can make you laugh or cry or dream and hope