My husband sometimes chuckles at my book-buying style. I want to go to an actual bookstore and wander through the shelves, picking up this one and that one, adding this one to my pile of purchases and returning that one to the shelf. I want to talk to the clerks and see what they're reading. I often strike up conversations with other browsers about whether such-and-such an author's latest book is a good one or lesser. I don't often buy books second-hand, and I don't sell them once I've finished. I like to give them away, sometimes to people I think will appreciate them, other times to Little Libraries in my home town, where I hope someone feels lucky to find them. I think I choose books this way because I want to own a story, if only for the time it takes to read it.

To me a book is a visit, where I jump temporarily into someone else's life. Fiction in particular acquaints us with the thoughts and experiences common to people we can never meet in person, and who would not tell us their thoughts and experiences so candidly even if we could. As I read, I identify with the women in The Nightingale, or the family in The Covenant of Water, or the protagonist in I Cheerfully Refuse, sharing their joys and their pain. The good part is knowing I can close the book at any time and return to my safe space with soft clothes, a warm bed, and no-bake cookies for dessert.