The Ledger

By Becky Holland

Today, August 9, is National Book Lovers Day, and if there were ever a made-up holiday I could wholeheartedly support, this might be the one.

I love books.

I love bookstores and libraries. I love new books with crisp pages and old books that have obviously been loved before. I love finding a handwritten name inside a used book and wondering who that person was and where the book has traveled.

I even love the smell of books.

Yes, I’m one of those people.

But being a book lover doesn’t necessarily mean buying another book — something I may need to remind myself of occasionally.

Sometimes the best bookstore is the one already sitting in your own house.

So, in honor of National Book Lovers Day, I’m planning to do a little “shopping” from my own shelves. There are books there I bought because I couldn’t wait to read them, only to become distracted by another book. And then another.

Surely I’m not the only reader guilty of that.

That’s one of the wonderful things about books, though. They wait for us.

A story can sit quietly on a shelf for months or even years until one afternoon we pick it up and discover that now is exactly the right time to read it.

And you don’t have to own shelves overflowing with books to celebrate National Book Lovers Day.

We have our public library right here in Cochran, and our community also has several Little Free Libraries where books can be picked up and shared at no charge.

I have become especially fond of those little boxes of books around town.

There’s something wonderful about opening the door and never knowing what you’ll find. Maybe it’s a mystery you’ve never heard of, a children’s book that needs a new young reader, an old favorite or the very book you’ve been meaning to read.

Take a book. Leave a book. Read it and pass it along.

It’s such a simple idea, but there’s something very neighborly about it.

Books have always had a way of connecting people who might otherwise have very little in common. We recommend them to friends. We loan them to family members. We talk about characters as though they’re people we actually know.

Sometimes a book entertains us. Sometimes it teaches us something. Sometimes it gives us an escape for a few hours.

And every once in a while, we find one that comes along at precisely the right moment and reminds us that somebody else, somewhere, has felt what we’ve felt.

That’s a lot for a collection of paper, ink and words.

So on National Book Lovers Day, read a few pages.

Visit the library. Check one of Cochran’s Little Free Libraries. Give away a book you’ve finished so someone else can discover it. Or stand in front of your own bookshelf and see what has been patiently waiting for you.

That’s where I’ll be shopping.

At least that’s the plan.