By Freelance Writer Denise Turney
Books inject everyday life with unmistakable energy, infusing daily experiences with hope. Fiction or nonfiction, books inspire, motivate, teach, entertain, and empower. It’s because manuscripts are more than paper and ink. They are stories, not just words on paper. And stories are the root of books – no story, it’s as if something too big is missing. Our stories are captured within pages, which is why books take you home.
Books Universal Human Conditions
Think about it. The Street, Native Son, The Round House, The Joy Luck Club, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, The Fire Keeper’s Daughter, To Kill A Mockingbird, My Soul To Keep, Macbeth, and War and Peace are just a few books that tell stories of the human condition. So brilliantly have authors captured common and uncommon human experiences that there are books, written decades ago, that continue to be celebrated.
Furthermore, it’s been shared that novelists tell the world what many people are thinking but are afraid to reveal. Admittedly, it does take courage to not only put your innermost thoughts and ideas on paper. Even more, it takes courage to share what you penned with the public, be that public a community of one other person.
It may be why Margaret Atwood said, “A word after a word after a word is power.” Could it be that the power and courage required to write honestly, to tell a story authentically, is transferred, even if only in small bits, from the author to the reader?
Creating Books as a Courageous Act
Paulo Coelho had this to say about creating story (books), “Tears are words that need to be written.” If you’re a journal writer, you may well understand this. Emotion, particularly hard-charged emotion, may likely be what drives you to sit down, pick up your journal, and write, sharing not only personal experiences but also your perspective on the experiences, with yourself and whoever may read your journal now or in the future.
In this case, your journal will become your book, your story. You know the power of your journal, because your essence is within the pages that you wrote upon.
Depending on what an author has experienced, how the author sees the world, books lean in different directions. Perhaps an author who feels that much of their inner world is hidden, even to them, might lean toward creating mysteries and suspense. Who knows?
Books Revealing Focus Links
Are authors of romance novels more occupied with romantic love? Could science fiction writers look more toward the future and what-could-be? And when readers pull toward a specific genre does that mean that the stories told from that perspective best echo what those readers are experiencing, perceiving or believe?
Carl Sagan quite well said, “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called ‘leaves’) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time–proof that humans can work magic.”1
Look over your shoulder at the experiences you’ve had and at the books you’re drawn to. Do you find a link?
Or perhaps it’s the way the human condition is explored, questioned or explained within the pages of a book that appeals most to you. Oddly, I’ve seen my own and other people’s book preferences shift with major life changes, including big shifts in how the person perceives the world.
Book Authors and the World
Makes me think that there must be a connection between reader, writer, and books. Causes me to believe that books take you home.
Then, there are books that reveal universal human hope, desire, excitement, or belief. J.R.R. Tolkien, author The Two Towers, captures some of this when he writes, “There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Regarding love, a thread that runs through all of life, Toni Morrison writes in her novel, Beloved, “Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”2
Who hasn’t wanted love to be real, what they always thought love to be? Surely, no one has wanted a “thin” or fraudulent love.
These are just a few universal topics that speak to the human condition, each captured or explored within the pages of books. This could be why reading books has been said to increase empathy in the reader.
Books Take Us Home
Which books mean more to you? Should you have favorite novel writers, what genres do these authors typically create stories in? And how do the books that they write take you home?
Even if you don’t notice it, the gains found in books might help you to understand life in this world better, might also protect you from feeling as if you’re moving through the world alone. It may be impossible to know just how much gain there is within the pages of a well-written and engaging book.
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to know how much you get from books you love reading to continue reaping benefits from these and other books. Beyond time and attention, little else is required to settle into a powerfully written story, to let books take you home.
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