New books find their way to us via a number of routes. Most obvious is bricks-and-mortar store browsing. There we are, in a shop, reading the back cover, brushing fingers over embossed titles, handling and patting, appreciating the book as an object. We can tickle spines and open up to brush pages, and – if no one’s looking – devour their smell. If everything chimes then the book is placed in a wrestler’s headlock, claimed as a joey kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. Chances are that it will soon have siblings – our eyes are bigger than our bedside tables.
Or perhaps a new book may be fostered from a library or foisted upon you by a friend who insists you will appreciate it. On the way home, blurbs are again consumed, and other furnishings idly absorbed – the review quote and the About the Author, the writer dedication and the font declaration.
Then there is that saintly thud of an online order plummeting from the letterbox, or the luscious scrape of cardboard on floor as, on returning home, you push the front door against the package. To buy online leaves you blind in comparison with bookshop scrutiny, but the gamble is surely worth the prize of feverishly setting about unwrapping the parcel. We are Charlie Bucket unwrapping a Wonka Bar, and there is a golden-ticket feeling every time.
By whichever route a book finds us, in our hands we now hold, we hope, a future escape. We are cradling delayed giggles and sobs, outcries and cheers, and flicking through pages among which we will soon find the time to lose ourselves. Before the reading begins, there is a pregnant sense of promise. The experience of this book will, if we have chosen well, enrich us and make us feel. It will pluck us out of the humdrum and cast us into uncertain and curious terrains, or drop us in sepia times. At this point, we do not know quite where we are going, how we will get there or indeed, whether we will even enjoy the ride. In the dawn stages of a slow-burning novel, a creeping fear can set in that this is not the book for us. Press on, though, and to find a gloopy book now motoring along by page 100 is a separate joy.
Frequently, starting a new book does not mean finishing another. There is no shame in that. In fact, it stands to emphasise just what a fine thing beginning a new book is – it is worth cheating on other titles for. It is almost impossible for us to stop ourselves: the covers are open and we are off, once more at the mercy of a new tale. It is a familiar and yet original excitement, as another journey gets underway.