Book Love
A good book really is like a good hug – it makes you feel warm, connected; it’s balm for the soul. But just what is it that makes us fall in love with a book? In this month’s feature, Inspire’s Michelle Dunstan explores the question . . .
“That’s how you know it’s a good book - you hug it.” Illustration © Carol Adlam
That's how you know it's a good book - you hug it." Doesn’t this real reader quote just sum up how we feel about a book we’ve adored? Those tales that linger in our minds long after the last page? The stories we devour, those we actually miss when they’re over?
But what is it that makes us fall in love with a book? For the readers who took part in our I Am A Reader groups, and indeed for myself, it can be a mix of so many factors; factors that can even change depending on where we are in our own lives.
As one reader put it: “I love when you get that moment in a book when something is said that you’ve never been able to put into words.”
It’s a sentiment I can empathise with. Some years ago now, as a new mother, Holly McNish’s Nobody Told Me, a collection of poems and stories taken from the writer’s own diaries as a new parent, resonated with me to the core. Right there on the page, she summed up so much of what I was feeling and made me feel seen. Furthermore, its ‘dip in’ nature made it perfect for keeping my reading mojo going amidst sleep deprivation and a seemingly never-ending cycle of feeds and nappy changes. And that book still has a special place on the bookshelf I have above my bed, the one reserved for books that have stuck with me. I don’t re-read it - that part of my life is long gone now – but I just like to know it’s there. (It probably won’t surprise you that I have a number of shelves in various parts of the house and for various reasons, but that’s a tale for another time.)
“I like to see different perspectives from people outside of a situation – to explore different people’s psyches and how they deal with things. I like when you see stories from different people’s perspectives, different points of view.”
As a case in point, my life couldn’t be any further removed from that of 19th Century Icelandic woman convicted of murder, but Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites had me more excited about a book than I had been in years. Perhaps an even better example is the love that I have for the bizarre and enchanting world of Haruki Murakami’s novels and short stories; a world of phantom sheep, talking cats, and strange disappearances and coincides. Frequently surreal and often dreamlike, his stories have the power to make my everyday reality simply melt away. And that’s worth coveting. Like another reader said:
“I like to escape from reality and go into a new world. It helps me sleep at night.”
It’s also one of the reasons I adored the beautiful and poignant The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. A joyfully speculative read, it tells of a library between life and death where every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived, and is uplifting and heartbreaking in equal measure. But while it does that trick of transporting you from your own ordinary life to an entirely fantastical reality, with The Midnight Library, the paradox is that, in end, it’s also a celebration of everything that can be wonderful in our ordinary lives. It gives hope. And what’s not to love about that?
But sometimes it’s simply the characters we fall in love with. Those fictional creations who become like longstanding friends.
I vividly recall finishing One Day by David Nicholls some years ago and feeling utterly bereft at saying goodbye to Emma and Dexter, whose stories I had followed so eagerly as I snatched time to read on buses and trains.
More recently (and in an entirely different vein) the gritty and heart-rending Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, had me aching for the novel’s unforgettable protagonist, in that wonderful way that a brilliantly drawn character becomes so real to you, that you can actually feel what they feel; their hopes and their fears, and as so often is the case of Shuggie, their pain. Shuggie became a part of me. And for a while, he was all I could talk about. As a reader told us about the books they love:
“I find myself thinking about it, talking about it with friends.”
While reading can be such a solitary pursuit, sometimes those books we have devoured alone in quiet moments, become so powerful to us that we can’t help but talk about them to anyone who will listen.
In the past, I have raved to many about a variety of books I love, such as the daringly inventive Lincoln in the Bardot by George Saunders, where ghosts mingle and gripe in the cemetery where Abraham Lincoln mourns his son, or the irresistibly speculative The Power by Naomi Alderman, which imagines a future where girls shoot electricity from their fingers.
But at the moment, I’m talking about little else than my current book love, our very own Six Stories from I Am A Reader, which was actually co-commissioned by some of the readers quoted in this article; giving it a very special place in my heart.
Contained inside its beautiful blue jacket, are six rare gems of stories by six brilliant writers, each inspired from conversations with real readers, and each one creating entirely different fictional worlds, which is testament to the creativity of both the writers and the readers involved.
And each time I hold a physical copy of Six Stories in my hand, I’m reminded of that beautiful illustration of the tram diver and the sentiment of its reader quote. True, there are many answers to the question; ‘what makes a good book?’ and various reasons why we love a particular story, but sometimes "you hug it" says it all.
