A book becomes company through the particular attention you bring to it.

Pages do different things depending on what a reader brings to them. Two people finish the same novel and one has been accompanied through a hard winter while the other has passed an afternoon, and the difference is not in the printing. Reading closely, at your own pace, with your own life running underneath it, is what turns paper into something that feels like company.

Give one book more attention than you usually would this month. Read slowly, reread a paragraph, put it down and think. The book will not change, and what it can be for you will.