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Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz is a book I stumbled upon while browsing my beloved used bookstore, and since I love books about books and the people who love them, it ended up coming home with me. Schwartz ruminates over her identity as a reader, turning it over in her hands and examining the facets: how did reading become such an inextricable part of her? How does it serve her? She writes about the magic of reading, the church of books, in a way that resonates deeply with me. She writes, “Without the voices of my youth, my ghostly familiars, how could I have become myself,” a belief echoed by Mary Oliver in Upstream when she speaks of her “great ones:” the writers “I am now inseparable from […] I go nowhere, I arrive nowhere, without them.” It’s been a long time since I annotated a book as joyfully as I did this one, and much like Upstream, I look forward to picking it up again and again. ID1: A paperback copy of Ruined by Reading lays open to the first page. My left arm lays across the left hand side of the book. A chai latte sits on the table, and a windowsill full of potted plants is just visible in the top of the frame. ID2: The same book lays closed on the restaurant counter so that you can see the cover. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Cynx1McrsXj/