Where I Left My Bookmark and Where I Hope to Pick It Up

The scent of old, yellowing pages and freshly brewed coffee wafts through the New York City air as I open the door to Shakespeare & Co. I step into the comforting shop and see rows upon rows of books, neatly lined up and slotted into wooden shelves. Around me, people catch up with friends, sit quietly with headphones on, or rush to grab a latte before heading to work. I feel at ease because nowhere else are there sounds and sights as welcoming as what is before me. 

That short moment in the bookstore a year ago was a reintroduction to something that I once loved intensely, then lost for a while, but never truly let go of: reading. The trip reminded me of my own bedroom’s humongous bookshelf, the books filling the shelves, all squished together, weighing them down. I recall all the worlds I’ve visited, characters I’ve met, and authors whose books I’ve read. Though some storylines are now fuzzy blurs, there is no doubt that my fingers spent hours turning almost all of their pages.

The books I started with years ago—bedtime stories my older sister tried to read to me before I pried the books from her hands—were about big red dogs, snowy days, and very hungry caterpillars. They were simple and small picture books, ten pages at most, but I enjoyed proving to my family that I didn’t need anyone to read me bedtime stories; I could read them myself. Slowly, as I grew older, I began to read even more books. My favorite at the time was The Boxcar Children, a tale of four siblings who made a boxcar their home and found their true family.

My reading developed with a great intensity. Fantasy and fiction quickly became my preferred genres, and, most of all, I loved books I could barely carry. My first and greatest true fantasy reading venture was the Harry Potter series. I began reading when I was in first grade, when I wanted to read the same books as my sister. I read anywhere I could—on the train in the morning, at school during lunch, or at home once I had finished my homework. Hogwarts became my favorite place to visit during my free time and the place where I was happiest. My imagination grew as I continued reading, and I spent much of my time wondering how fast I would have to run at the green pillars at the 125th Street train station to get to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. In no time, I had ripped through the whole series. Overdue books piled on top of each other as I rushed to explore their stories, and I set up timelines to determine how many days it would take me to read the next 500-page Keeper of the Lost Cities book. If I didn’t meet those goals, I was beyond disappointed. I believed that loving books meant having to consume them constantly.

So, when my elementary school announced a reading competition designed to motivate the many uninterested children into opening books, it barely felt like a challenge for me. My sister and I both participated in the contest; she was hoping to win for the upper elementary grades, and I hoped to be the lower elementary winner. Every day, we craned our necks to read the smooth pages of the latest series we were feasting on. 

“That’s 40 minutes of reading on the train, 50 minutes at lunch, and 40 minutes on the way home today,” I told my mother as I scribbled in my reading log and waited for her certifying signature.

On the final day of the reading contest, the morning announcements informed us of the winners. 

“Wow! This year, the winners of the contest are two sisters!” the assistant principal said, his voice crackling through the somewhat broken speakers.

Immediately after this sentence, before the assistant principal had even said my name, I knew that my sister and I had won. I wore a big smile across my face as I stood up from my desk. My friends were ecstatic for me, as I had talked of nothing but this contest for the past few weeks. Kids in my class also clapped to congratulate me, but they didn’t seem surprised. After all, wherever I was, there was always a book with me too.

After the declaration of my victory, I went down to the main office to collect my prize. To my excitement, it was a Barnes & Noble gift card. It was like someone had just provided me with fuel to continue my obsession.

As I continued to read, the effects of my expanding imagination showed up in my everyday life. My writing in school mimicked the craft of my favorite authors. I learned of places around the world as the characters in my novels traveled to save humanity. Reading helped me gain empathy and an understanding of the variety of circumstances surrounding me. Reading not only provided me with an intellectual pastime but also with skills and experiences I used daily.

A few years later, in fourth grade, my class began reading books together. Our teacher chose the books, we read them at home, and we analyzed every word in class. Before this, I had never taken the time to write an essay analyzing the significance of a specific phrase; I just picked up a book and rushed through its pages. The in-class books quickly bored me, and I dreaded the lengthy essays that followed. My imagination was stifled, and my focus was no longer directed toward my own books of choice, but to those of my school’s curriculum. 

Somehow, dust began to settle on the novels and stories I once obsessively cherished. I began to leave my own books at home and stopped reading on the train. By the time the pandemic occurred, I rarely picked up a novel and finished it. Instead, I chose to watch my favorite television shows or movies. The idea of starting a book and marching through the pages didn’t seem adventurous or freeing anymore. Reading felt like a drag that required active concentration. If it took effort, I read too slowly and felt like I was failing at it.

Even more so, I was buried by the mounting homework, tests, and extracurriculars of middle school. The idea of reading a book was tucked so far away in my mind, behind everything else. The books that I did try to start only frustrated me because, as I read, the only things I could think of were my upcoming tests and assignments, and I soon found myself having to refocus on the words in front of me and reread the paragraphs.

Occasionally, I saw the younger children in my neighborhood on their way to school with their faces stuffed in the pages of books I knew too well. I smiled at the remembrance of my own childhood of books, but at the same time, felt an aching pang of sadness and guilt. Why couldn’t I pick up a book as they could?

Driven by my early love and deep passion for reading that I saw reflected in the faces of those children, I decided to try to get back into reading. I thought that maybe I could find my own love for it again. To begin this process, last summer, when I had no excuse for a lack of free time, I tried to motivate myself to read. Similar to what I would have done when I was younger, next to my bed, I stacked 20 books that I wanted to read on top of each other. However, at the end of summer, I had only read five Agatha Christie mysteries from the pile. But for the first time, I realized that reading five books was better than reading none, and I had begun to feel that wondrous sense of imagination again, the eyes of my mind trapped in the imagery of the words before me. I remembered the shock of a good plot twist and the excitement that made me want to dart my eyes over the next few lines before I had fully read the ones preceding them. Though I hadn’t devoured the books as rapidly as I used to, I felt a great sense of enjoyment returning to me. I wasn’t upset like I would have been merely years before if I had failed to achieve my reading goals; instead, I was proud. For the first time, I allowed myself to enjoy reading a book without being bothered by my own or a school’s expectations. The number of books mattered less than the fact that I wanted to read at all, and wanted to continue.

For my birthday, as part of a gift to me, my uncle sent me Pride and Prejudice. For once, before setting a book down already knowing I wasn’t going to read it any time soon, I read the blurb. Soon, scanning the blurb became slowly flipping to the first chapter, and eventually, reading through the whole book. I finished the book neither quickly nor obsessively, but I finished it with enjoyment, and without pressure or self-judgment.

Today, I know that any guilt I feel for not matching my younger self’s strides through books is unnecessary. Years have passed, and my life has changed. Despite the smaller number of books I now read in my free time, my love for them remains. Now, I slip a book into my backpack every so often and hope its weight reminds me of its presence. When it does, I pick up the book and treasure its story. While I may not have time to rapidly gorge on the lines of a good novel, nor win any contests for my ability to do so, I can still feel the satisfaction of closing a book for the final time and removing its torn bookmark. I no longer rush myself to become the reader I once was because I’ve learned that loving books does not require urgency or excess, whether that pressure comes from myself or from school. I now take pleasure in the little snippets of reading time I have. Accepting that my earlier reading habits belonged to a different stage of my life has finally allowed me to stop chasing them and appreciate reading for what it can be for me today. Now, I can still be comforted by the fact that a good novel and the strong smell of coffee from a bookstore will always be waiting here for me.