Discovering Beauty Within a Book's Bindings Katherine Berke

I often find myself momentarily stunned by small, jewel-like moments that make up this life. For this I must thank books.

I always loved to read, for reading allowed me to contemplate life in a way that reality never did. The novelty lay, I think, in my ability to savor the emotion that a few well-strung words could create. Though equal emotion was evident in real life, it often whizzed past me before I could capture it. With literature, however, I could lay within a rose-garden all day, bathing ecstatically in the sudden warmth of a well-phrased description.

This is not to say, however, that literature was simply an escape. In fact, I found it to be quite the opposite. Literature provided me with insight into the subtlety of the universe. After all, if a few ink-splotches on a page could conjure up an image of absolute eternity, it must follow that each and every thing which we encounter possesses hidden depth. I began to gaze at the sky, to look at clouds differently. I felt a sense of awe upon viewing the gracefulness of lithe fingers plucking weeds from the ground. In even the most ordinary occurrence, I found beauty.

Unfortunately, there came a day when I stumbled upon words that did not, could not, provide any feeling of...