Books don’t teach us about life, they just call forth what our mind suspects, our heart hopes,
and our spirit knows to be true.
~ Tom De Blasis, social impact designer and innovator
Book lovers hardly needs to be reminded that books are irreplaceable, that books are special “soulmates” even in our digitally=saturated world. While the Internet is a great knowledge resource, it has not made books redundant or any less special; we still love books beyond the facts they contain. We seek them for solace, for the voices of our shared humanity and for for escape, through fantasy writings that transport us to fantastical places. In this post, I share the words of some of the world’s sharpest minds – artists, writers, musicians, photographers, and scientists – on what they think of books. Each quote is taken from letters they wrote to the general reader. The contributors include Neil Gaiman, Debbie Millman, Diane Ackerman, and Naomi Wolf.
Letter #1 by Debbie Millman
I want to tell you that everything will be okay.
I want to tell you that it will get better.
I want to tell you that it works out in the end.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
But there is something you can do in response: read. Read until your heart breaks and you can’t stand it anymore. If they make you cry, it’s only because they are that good.
You can depend on books. They will always be there for you. Their patience is infinite, and they have been known to save lives. They can help you become a smarter, more interesting person. Books – like dogs – are among a handful of things on the planet that just want to be loved. And they will love you back, generously and selflessly, requiring very little in return – until they are complete, their light and their wisdom and their hearts sputtering to an inevitable lonely end.
Debbie Millman is a designer, artist, educator, and the host of Design Matters, one of the very first podcasts ever. She also chairs the world’s first Master’s Degree in Branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has written several books on design and branding.
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Letter #2 by Neil Gaiman
A writer can fit a whole world inside a book. You can go there. You can learn things while you are away. You can bring them back to the world you normally live in. You can look out of another person’s eyes, think their thoughts, care about what they care about. Somewhere, there is a book written just for you. It will fit your mind like a glove fits your hand. And it’s waiting. Go and look for it.
Neil Gaiman discovered his love of books, reading, and stories by devouring the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolien, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, UrsulaK. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, and G.K Chesterson. He now writes prose, poetry, film, comics, song lyrics, and drama for people of all ages.
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Letter #3 by Diane Akerman
Clutching a physical book, like holding someone’s hand, tenders it own special sensations. I love the comforting weight of a book, and the way your fingers skim across the creamy puddles of its pages, one after another, following the darting minnows of words. You can stroll through a book’s compact, neatly bound world, hold it open in both hands, and stare thoughtfully into its face, then close it and see it whole. No matter where life takes you, you’re never alone with a book, which becomes a tutor, a wit, a mind-sharpener, a soulmate, a performer, a sage, a verbal bouquet for a loved one. Long live their indelible magic.
A poet, essayist, and naturalist, Diane Ackerman is the author of two dozen works of poetry and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers, The Zookeeper’s Wife, A Natural History of the Senses; and The Human Age, along with One Hundred Names for Love, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In 2022, she was awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal for science communication.
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Letter #4 by Lucianne Walkowicz
For each foot away
you hold a book,
you see a billionth of a second
back in time.
Hold the pages close.
They are portals
to worlds that exist,
as surely as the heavens hang
with planets beyond our own.
The tactile bending of
pages or pixels
conjure lives just as human
as any you have known.
Step forward if you’re brave.
Stories become our
well-worn pathways,
and our companions.
Repeat them and release them,
so that their truth may one day
come back to you.
Lucianne Walkowicz is an astronomer and an artist. In her scientific work, she studies stellar magnetic activity and how stars influence a planet’s suitability as a host for alien life. As an artist, she works in a variety of media, from oil paint to sound. In 2017, she was appointed Chair of Astrobiology at the Library of Congress.
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Letter #5 by Naomi Wolf
Why read? Because you only have one life but reading gives you many lives. Because you only have one personality but when you read a book, you can be inside another mind and heart. Because experiencing elegance of language is one of the greatest pleasure of consciousness. Reading lets you be quiet in a chaotic world, commune with amazing people, takes apart your world and expectations and rearranges them. Imagine the last few years without the books you have loved – it would be a much flatter, sadder experience of living. We read as a form of faith.
Naomi Wolf is an author, journalist, feminist and former political advisor to Al Gore and Bill Clinton. After the success of her first book, The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokeswoman for the third-wave feminist movement. Her subsequent books include: The End of America: Letter to a Young Patriot, and Vagina: A New Biography.