Booking Through Thursday: Love

What do you love most about reading?

I don’t know who said it first, but it’s a common enough sentiment that George R. R. Martin mentions it in A Dance of Dragons (which, no, I haven’t read it, I’m saving it, like those technical commentaries on The Lord of the Rings):

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.

There’s a lot I love about reading—the weight of a book, the moment when a sentence is so perfect it pierces your heart, its weird telepathy, and how characters can come alive. But that’s what I love most about reading, this peculiar and specific blend of escapism, empathy, and horizon-broadening.