As of the moment, my bookshelf is overflowing. It came to the point where my books are now thoughtfully and meticulously stacked on top of each other. My main shelf is located behind my bed, so I make sure to place paperbacks, as opposed to hardcovers, at the top of the pile just in case it falls on me while I’m sleeping (they’re actually very stable). Even though this may be an inconvenient spot for a bookshelf, I personally love it. I’ve had this shelf in this precise location for years and never wanted to change the layout because of the fact that I can conveniently reach behind me and choose my next read.
I also consider the books on my Kindle and the ones I borrow on Libby as part of my personal library, but here is a peek into my physical bookshelf, shown above. This is just a glimpse into some of my favorite books. I love to read anything and everything, but I do particularly love fantasy and romance. One of the most magical things about any type of story is that you can experience a different life every time you read. That feeling of living someone else’s life through words is irreplaceable. You aren’t just experiencing these characters’ lives but also the authors’. Each word was intentionally placed on the page to create this amazing story that can bring out so many different emotions at once. I felt like I was getting a warm hug when reading Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez or the fact that I was definitely spiraling during Powerless by Lauren Roberts. I get to bask in these beautiful, powerful feelings through each unique read.
This picture above consists of my favorite poetry books and the books I read for Literature in middle and high school. Literature class was always my favorite subject because I loved analyzing the small details of a text and then learning about the different perspectives of my classmates. I loved the discussions we had and how the debates became so passionate that we were on the edges of our seats waiting to share our opinions. That buzz of excitement in the air when we came into class after reading the ending of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde the night before is something I still remember. Everyone was talking about it and I felt a sense of community with my classmates. As you can probably tell by the spines, I had heavily annotated each one and I was always that person who wanted to highlight everything because a book was so good. Now these stories live on my bookshelf, where I can reread them. It’s always so fun for me to go back to my annotations and see what thoughts changed as compared to the ones I had when I was a teen.
Books are like a magical device, not only because they teleport me into different worlds, but because they also hold some of my most precious memories and I can play them back like a film reel. When I look at my well-loved books and go back to my thoughts I wrote in my reading journal, I can relive the feelings of experiencing a story for the first, second, or third time. I would remember staying up late reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, even though I had classes at 8 in the morning, or how I was sighing dreamily while reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Books tuck these memories warmly into their pages, and I get to reminisce about all the different versions of me in each book.
Marian Kohng (she/her/hers) is a proud Korean American and an Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications and a Traffic Copy Editor at a local news station in Tucson, AZ. She also has a Bachelor’s in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science and a Master’s in Marketing. She loves to get lost in a good book and will read just about anything, including the back of the shampoo bottle.
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