“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” — — Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Shadow of the Wind)

Once upon a time when libraries used paper cards stuck in pockets in the backs of books showing the names of each person who had checked them out, the recent life of the books I read was very apparent. If the book was required reading, the card would be filled with recent dates and the names of other students in my class.

The cards in popular fiction were filled with names, sometimes of close friends who suggested the books to me. For a time, biographies were very popular and the book cards showed the books were circulating briskly. So were books by local and regional authors unless those authors were old and forgotten. If there was a short gap between the dates, it usually meant the book had been renewed by the person who checked it out. If there was a larger gap between the in and out dates, I figured the person forgot about the book and had to pay a fine for turning it in late.

Sometimes I checked out books nobody seemed to care much about. In some cases, the cards were yellowed with age and nobody had read the book for years. I often wondered if others noticed the progression of names on the book cards. Did they see that I had checked out the book. Were they surprised? Would they be moved to say something about it: had I enjoyed it? had it changed my life?

There are books on my shelves my father and mother owned, sometimes passed down from their parents or received at Christmas or a birthday with a short note such as “For Larry, March 11, 1953, happy birthday and happy reading. With love, Kaye.”

There are books on my shelves that I never hear anyone mention even though I turn to them from time to time to read a favorite passage or check a reference. I like picking up Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides from time to time to read his descriptions of the marshland along the South Carolina coast.

I like picking up a book of poems my mother received as a gift in 1944, Elogies and Other Poems by St.-John Perse. I love the poems, but oddly enough for all the years this book sat on a bookshelf when I was growing up, she and I never spoke of it for I hadn’t yet discovered it. Looking at his childhood, the poet writes, “And everything was but shimmering reigns and frontiers of light,” and I nod in agreement every time I read the lines.

When I pick up T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published in 1935, I wonder about the changes in the Middle East since “Lawrence of Arabia” was there. Would he recognize what the world has made of it and how one politician or another thinks to trace his name in the shifting desert sands and have it remain there for long.

In an introductory poem, Lawrence wrote, “I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars to earn you freedom, the seven pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me when we came.”

Whether or not a book has a soul, I cannot say. But I do believe it has a rather intentional history in its movements from person to person, showing up when needed for inspiration, information or comfort. Few libraries still use book cards, so the names of those who read each book before we see it are obscured to us. Occasionally one finds a note in a margin, a highlighted line or a dog-eared page. One finds bent covers and loose binding. Or, quite simply, the pages andcovers have become rather old and tired.

Books speak to each of us in the quiet privacy of easy chairs and kitchen tables, in beds and parks, or in busy airports and subway cars. Once, in South Carolina, a motorcycle sped by with the biker leaning forward while his partner crouched behind his broad shoulders in the shadow of the wind, reading a book. Such images stay with me and I wonder with each of them what manner of dialogue commenced between the printed page and the mind behind the eyes that read the words.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell