Good-grief books can be distracting.

Shopping to do, dishes to wash, food to cook – but another world calls softly to you as you go about your day.

The worlds and stories between the lines whisper at us to join them.

The knowledge and thoughts of generations past, their wisdom journaled for our inquisitive eyes, sits waiting.

You open your phone reader in the doctor’s office, but you are called back before you finish the page.

You reach for a book at home, and then the phone rings.

All you want is a question answered, a question you have not even thought to ask yet.

All you want is to share a thought with someone who lived 300 years ago, and know you had their same thought only last week.

All you want is to read that last book your favorite author wrote.

Sometimes a few hours and a quiet spot is all you need.

Sometimes life calls you away.

“The answer is in a book somewhere, in my own blessed library. Still in my coat I revisit my book piles, trying not to be sidetracked nor lured into another dimension. I pretend not to notice After-Dinner Declarations by Nicanor Parra or Auden’s Letters from Iceland . I momentarily open Jim Carroll’s The Petting Zoo, essential to anyone in search of concrete delirium, then immediately close it. Sorry, I tell them all, I can’t revisit you now, it’s time to reel myself in.”

–Patti Smith, M Train