I always felt a strong attraction to books. As a teenager I started reading a lot and never really stopped. No one in my family was a reader, but somehow it always felt natural to me. When I was 17 my family moved to a new house, and rebel me decided that I did not want to have a TV in my room to avoid distractions. Funny enough, 43-year old me is doing the same now.

Sometimes I miss reading from physical books since a few year back I gave Kindle a try and now I moved over to reMarkable, which gives me a more physical feel and the ability to highlight sections or make notes in the margin: something that I never did on an actual book (and maybe never will). The book as an object always felt a bit magical to me, timeless. But the book-objet, its cover, and format, are not magical in essence. They are just an afterthought of the editor or publishing company and, in most cases, not really that important.

For me, reading is a unique opportunity to get into the mind of someone else, someone that may have lived in a different time, a different culture, and lived a totally different life. We spend too much time listening to our inner voice, and -- for the most part -- believing what it says. It's hard to really listen to anyone with total attention and suspending, or at the very least delaying, judgment. That's the magic of books: really stepping into someone else's mind and spend some time there.

A book for me is represent a strong commitment to let the author make a point. Only in some odd situations I have not finished a book I have started reading. Maybe I'm too polite, but I find it a bit irrespecutful not to let the generous author to finish her story.