“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”
―
―
“And so to read is, in truth, to be in the constant act of creation. The old lady on the bus with her Orwell, the businessman on the Tube with Patricia Cornwell, the teenager roaring through Capote -- they are not engaged in idle pleasure. Their heads are on fire. Their hearts are flooding. With a book, you are the landscape, the sets, the snow, the hero, the kiss -- you are the mathematical calculation that plots the trajectory of the blazing, crashing zeppelin. You -- pale, punchable reader -- are terraforming whole worlds in your head, which will remain with you until the day you die. These books are as much a part of you as your guts and your bone. And when your guts fail and your bones break, Narnia, or Jamaica Inn, or Gormenghast will still be there; as pin-sharp and bright as the day you first imagined them -- hiding under the bedclothes, sitting on the bus. Exhausted, on a rainy day, weeping over the death of someone you never met, and who was nothing more than words until you transfused them with your time, and your love, and the imagination you constantly dismiss as "just being a bit of a bookworm.”
―
―
“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”
― So You Want to Be a Wizard
― So You Want to Be a Wizard
“The motto I have penned on my knuckles is that this is the best world we have--because it's the only world we have. It's the simplest math ever. However many terrible, rankling, peeve-inducing things may occur, there are always libraries. And rain-falling-on-sea. And the moon. And love. There is always something to look back on, with satisfaction, or forward to, with joy. There is always a moment where you boggle at the world--at yourself--at the whole, unlikely, precarious business of being alive--and then start laughing”
― Moranthology
― Moranthology
“Perhaps there's another, much larger story behind the printed one, a story that changes just as our own world does. And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we'd see peering through a keyhole. Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.”
― Inkheart
― Inkheart
Our Shared Shelf
— 222828 members
— last activity May 18, 2026 10:32AM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
Crip Shelves
— 57 members
— last activity Dec 19, 2021 06:10PM
This group is a book club and community for Disabled and Chronically Ill readers. Here we can discuss disability and chronic illness representation in ...more
Spoonie Reads
— 256 members
— last activity Mar 27, 2026 11:21PM
A laid back book club for chronically ill and disabled folks. Find us on tumblr @spooniereads or twitter @asouthernceliac and be sure to use the hasht ...more
Worlds Beyond the Margins
— 2116 members
— last activity May 19, 2026 11:26AM
Celebrating Adult Fantasy, Scifi, and Horror books that promote diversity and inclusion. In all styles and formats: genre, literary, short stories, ...more
Aparna’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Aparna’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Aparna
Lists liked by Aparna










































