Books have been my favorite form of escape for as long as I can remember. I still remember the feeling of my very first book, and many of the ones that quietly transformed something inside me afterward. Some stayed for a season. Others remained for life.

There is a particular intimacy in receiving a new book. Freshly brought home from a bookstore, still untouched, carrying the faint scent of paper, ink and promise. The pages resist slightly beneath the fingers, as though they still belong to silence.

Before reading, there is always a small ritual. You choose the space carefully: a deep chair, a blanket, warm socks, tea slowly cooling nearby, the right light falling across the page. The outside world softens. Time begins separating itself from urgency.

And then comes the moment I have always loved most: opening the book at a random page and reading a few lines for the first time. Not to understand the story yet. But to taste the atmosphere of the world you are about to enter. Certain books announce themselves immediately. Others reveal their depth slowly, asking for patience, attention, surrender.

Reading has never felt passive to me. It is one of the rare experiences where solitude becomes profoundly alive. A conversation forms between the page and the inner self — quiet, invisible, but deeply transformative.

Inside that space, nothing demands anything from you. No performance. No speed. No explanation.

Only presence.

Reading is often treated as a habit, a form of education, or even entertainment. But perhaps, in its purest form, it is something much more essential than that. A return to interiority. A way of meeting parts of ourselves that everyday life constantly interrupts.

The right to read belongs to everyone.
But the ability to truly disappear inside a book — to surrender to it fully, emotionally, almost physically — feels increasingly rare.