Any bibliophile has a deep curiosity about the books that have had a profound resonance with other readers. We know so well the books that became part of the essence of who we are. When I saw this as a Goodreads Giveaway I couldn’t hit the enter button fast enough. A hundred people telling me the book that shaped who they would become next? What about this doesn’t beg to be read. So thank you very much Bethanne Patrick, Reagan Arts, and Goodreads (I was one of the fortunate recipients of that giveaway.)for The Books that Changed My Life.

Bethanne Patrick has brought together one hundred notables (Authors, Musicians, Judge Advocates, Actors, Producers) to write a short essay about the one book that had the most significance to them. To me, it is such an intimate question. What book has affected me in a way that changed me as a person? That answer takes a great deal of honesty to share with the world. This collection transports the reader to a very personal place with everyone interviewed.

I’m a tab person, I like that I can mark a place in the book that is significant to me, with out damaging the integrity of the structure. I went through at least two whole reams of tabs. Books that I now need to read; books that I have read, but found it interesting to visit – if only briefly – another’s experience of it.

Gina Barreca writes about Remember Me by Fey Weldon. She talks about how she was on her first trip to Paris; she’s picked up the book in the station. Her friend is pointing out the countryside – the French-ness of everything. All she can do is turn pages and beg her friend to listen to passages. I feel a kinship with her, I remember a trip to the Grand Canyon, we were driving back to Las Vegas to my Great Aunts. The landscape there is so different than my little flat sand island, but I couldn’t close the book. That’s what is so wonderful about this book.

There are little quirks that we have as readers, a personal relationship with the bound magic of printed word, with story. In a family of readers everyone has their own perspective on books the physical object and their perception of it as an artifact, a sacred means of near telepathic communication, or something only temporary. I have an Uncle who ear marked pages. My Grandfather hasn’t bought and kept a book for near forty years – even gifts; he always passes them on, leaves them behind when he travels.

Tim Gun talks about removing the dust covers to preserve the integrity of the book, as a sacred relic. A quirk that has been infuriating my own family for years, but it is a manifestation of his love of the written word. This is what is most compelling in this book. Everyone, what they value, who they are, whatever their agenda, or personal narrative of the world is; they each share a love for the story. The love of the story is such a human dimension (Lieutenant General Flora Darpino)

I would have finished the book in a day, if the reality of being an adult hadn’t been pressing it’s face against the window. I know that I will read certain pages again, I will revisit Jacob Hemphill’s words about The Little Prince; Arliegh Kincheloe on Pride and Prejudice; Fran Lebowitz on How Reading is Her Life; Luis Urrea on Cup of Tea Poems.

I will read books that I may not have come across in my local library, that may never have been on my path. That’s the magic of writing, of ink, and line, and binding, the connection from writer to reader to writer, from era to era, through vastly different and yet so alike social orders, through the years and centuries. A community of thinkers, maybe there could have been more variety in the type of people interviewed, less emphasis on the academics, but there are plenty of readers to interview and Ms. Patrick can bring us another book, another community of readers to share the book that changed their life.

Go order a copy, or encourage your library to; definitely worth it.