Maybe

There are several books on my bookshelf simply waiting to be discovered: The Duet, Wuthering Heights, and a plethora of James Calvin Schaap’s.  I begin reading back covers, flipping through pages, reading dedications.

When it comes to starting a new book, fears often creep into my mind.  What if I don’t like this book?  What if it’s boring?  What if it’s sad?  The what-ifs flood my mind and make it difficult to choose.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, a well-loved book comes into view.  

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I have read this book before – twice in fact – and feel rather guilty considering taking it for a third adventure.  But this book is safe.  These characters are already my close friends.  We have laughed together, loved together, and shared the intimacy of tears together.  I know that the second I slide that book off its home on the shelf, I won’t be able to put it back.

But that’s exactly what I did.  I slid.

Suddenly, I was transported to Britain during the aftermath of WWII.  My old friends were making me laugh, just as I knew they would.  I found myself trying to read faster because I knew I would enjoy what was right around the next page.  I couldn’t help but smile.

I began marking passages that hadn’t struck me before.  I even discovered a new word: muckraking.  And I was delighted to find that upon looking up its definition, another word could not have fit the situation more perfectly.

Maybe the authors of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society were right.  Maybe “there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

Just maybe.