The Right Book

This one is not my writing. Its Christabelle Adeline's and I just cant stop reading it.


The Right Book

Sometimes the right book is the one you already know from your many trips to the bookstore, from the hours you’ve spent scanning the shelves, the one you’ve many times walked past, run your fingers over, and maybe even held in your hand for a few minutes to observe the cover.

The right book may have an interesting synopsis at the back. The right book may not have an interesting synopsis at the back. If you haven’t heard praises about it, you will find them on the cover, written by people or publications who may or may not be credible. You’d consider them, except that they’re nothing but short excerpts of reviews, and you wonder if these compliments could have been taken out of context.

You’d put it back on the shelf and walk out with a different book. You just need an easy read. The right book seemed a little heavy. You cannot do heavy right now.

You pick it up again days, maybe months, or years later. You think, “why not” and immediately start reading at the coffee shop attached to the bookstore.

The right book is beautifully written. You didn’t know it was so funny, though it is also a little sad. At home you stay up all night reading in the comfort of your bed, you get to work late and sleep-seprived. You read it during your commute – no, you commute to read it – you take it out to lunch, you steal cigarette breaks to read.

The right book takes you places you’ve never been, introduces you to people you never thought you’d meet. It is a little heavy, and you get a little intimidated sometimes. But you keep going anyway. The right book takes awhile to appreciate; sometimes Google comes in handy as you look up references, but it is patient with you as much as you are patient with it.

The right book is “unputdownable” – you keep turning pages after pages, you are so consumed in it you don’t even bother keeping track like you usually do.

100 pages in, 300 pages in, 478 pages in, 538 pages in, and before you know it the right book – like any other book – ends.