Sometimes I catch myself wondering, Why do I read? What am I really looking for in books? And if you’ve ever asked yourself something similar, then A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader is a book worth sitting with.

It’s one of those beautiful reads that reminds us of the magic reading can bring into our life. The idea behind it is simple yet moving: over the course of eight years, Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick reached out to a wide mix of people—writers, artists, scientists, thinkers—and asked them to write a letter to young readers. The letters are all about how reading shaped their lives. And to make it even more special, each one is paired with a unique illustration that captures the feeling of the words.

Even though the book is framed as being “for young readers,” I genuinely think it’s for all of us. The need to understand why we read, or to rediscover that feeling, can come at any point in life. I’ve been a lifelong reader, and yet this book still gave me something new. It helped me name that feeling I sometimes get when a book moves me in ways I didn’t expect. It also reminded me that maybe, just maybe, there are still stories out there waiting to give me a feeling I haven’t experienced yet.

If you’re in a reading slump, feeling disconnected from books, or just need a reminder of why reading matters, I can’t recommend this one enough. Below, I’ve shared a few of my favorite quotes from the letters that really stayed with me. Maybe they’ll spark something in you, too.

Summary

• “We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can’t understand what we feel—and sometimes, we’re unable to tell them, because we don’t really understand it ourselves. That’s where books come in.” —Alain de Botton

• “Books let us know we’re not the center of the universe; the universe has many centers.” —Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

• “(..) Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” —Tim Ferris.

• “Books are borrowed minds, and because they capture the soul of a people, they explore and celebrate all it means to be human.” —Diane Ackerman

• “There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.” —Helen Fagin

• “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.” —Naomi Wolf.

• “Reading is not antisocial but the most social act we can imagine, inviting us to see, hear, feel, taste, smell someone else’s life from the inside.” —David L. Ulin.

• “More and more of our society is centered on pictures and images, which is a beautiful thing. But some of the most important parts of life are not visible in pictures: ideas, insights, logic, reason, mathematics, intelligence. These can’t be drawn, photographed, or pictured. They have to be conveyed in words, arranged in an orderly string, and can only be understood by those who have acquired the superpower of reading.” —Kevin Kelly.

• “is what books do—they allow us to feel less alone in our uncertainty as they shed their light.” —David Delgado.

• “Books taught me to explore my imagination and helped me recognize when I’d arrived at a successful conclusion. But books also introduced me to people who think like I might want to. I met people who share similar ideas or attitudes—whether scientific or not. But I also met people who think differently and invited me to do so as well.” —Lisa Randall.

• “The more books you read, the more you will pay attention. The more you will wonder and discover.” —Jacqueline Novogratz.

• “Opening a book is opening a door: you step through; you forget where you are. Time passes, but not for you. You walk into a dream—someone else’s dream, but it becomes your own. You remember a food you’ve never tasted, a song you’ve never heard. Homesickness comes over you—a sorrowful longing for a place that was never your home. Or you fall in love with someone who never existed. How can that happen? Information is entering your brain by way of your eyes, yes, but it feels as though something has reached straight through your ribcage and grabbed your heart.” —James Gleick.

• “Books look static and quiet but they are not. They exude a pressure. They have a melody and stride. But they are only effective when balanced by the pressure of the reader, when they can reflect as well as transmit, when they elongate or quicken according to the velocity of the reader. You, reader, define the experience of the book. Every book you read could only be read in precisely that way by you.” —Janna Levin

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Believe only half of what you read
and none of what you hear.
Walk instead in the company of
the wisdom of the sages and ages,
and find yourself in the harmonic rhythms
of eternity sung in their writings.
We know if we go.
The way books do show.
So endlessly we grow.

Believe only half of what you see
and none of what you read.

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

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Author: Maria Popova and Claudia Zoe Bedrick

Publication date: 14 December 2018

Number of pages: 272 pages

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