A Million Waiting Doors

I remember the first book I ever read all by myself. It was a simple little story, really, with large print and brightly colored pictures. Word by word, my finger moving across the page, I read, slowly at first and then with growing confidence. When I reached the last page, I felt like a door had just opened up in front of me. Dimly I felt that everything had changed, and that my life would never be the same.

I was right.

Oh, my. All the books.

How many books have you read in your lifetime? Not books for school or because you had to, but because you couldn't NOT read them? Have you ever read a book that reached out and dragged you in with the first sentence, sweeping you into the river of words and leaving you, at the end, gasping on the shore, breathless and dumbstruck?

Have you ever read a book that picked you up and shook you till your teeth rattled, then thumped you back down to find that your whole world had changed? Or a book that made you gasp out loud or wake up your roommate or your cat when you roared with laughter?

Once I missed my flight home from college because I was reading The Lord of the Rings. I was at that critical moment when Frodo was standing at the edge of the precipice, struggling to make that final, awful sacrifice. The smoke was swirling around him, the world hung in the balance, and I was right there in that cavern with him. When slimy old Gollum fell screaming into the abyss, I looked up with a sigh of pure satisfaction to find the airport lobby empty and the plane long gone. Now that's what I call a great book!

When I look back at all of the books I've read over the years - the fantasies, the mysteries, the fiction, the great classics and the new bestsellers - it's like all my reading has been one long, long journey. That moment as a child set me on a lifelong voyage, winding my way through book after book, opening one door after another.

Books have been my teachers, challenging me to stretch my mind and open my heart. They've been my guides, leading me into strange new worlds. They've beckoned me to their firesides, where I've leaned close as they whispered their stories to me. They've been my solace when my heart was aching and a warm fire when the world was cold and lonely. Some I've only dipped into, some I've swallowed in a sitting, and some, the tattered ones on my favorite shelf, became old friends that I visit again and again.

Most of all, every book has been a door.

In my imagination, I picture that immense library where all the books of the world live. I can just see it - that huge mansion full of endless corridors. Everywhere you turn, every long, winding hall is lined with doors. And every one of those doors is a book, waiting for the touch of my hand, or yours.

Open this door, and you'll find you're groping your way along a dark tunnel, sloping down to the heart of a mountain. Far in the distance is a fiery glow, and a whiff of dragon smoke.

The next door opens into a book-lined study. There's a fire in the fireplace, a bottle of bourbon and two glasses on the side table - and a bloodstained body sprawled on the lush carpet.

This one leads to a Victorian drawing room, where a woman in a widow's gown gazes out the window at the rain, clutching a letter in her hand.

Look out! If you open this door, the next moment you'll find yourself hanging by a rope on the side of a huge cliff. Open this next door, and suddenly you're crouched over a dying fire in the bitter wind with wolves howling in the distance.

Now you're hurtling down a rushing river in a canoe with a broken paddle, out of control, or in a frantic car chase, with shots whizzing past you as you struggle to stay on the road.

Open this door and cannons boom; soldiers in ragged uniforms stagger and fall. This door, and you're in a courtroom, breathlessly waiting for a verdict - the next, and sunlight pours through, with a rush of wind and birdsong, and a child turns and smiles.

As for me, the last door I walked through has taken me to a busy train station in Russia. A woman is standing near me, her face pale and eyes wild. A train is pulling in with a screech of brakes, and she's walking toward the tracks, and even though I know what will happen next, I can't tear my eyes away.

Every book is a door, a story created for you. And never forget - some of those stories were written at terrible cost, carved into the walls of locked rooms or scrawled on blood-stained paper. Some were the last gasped words of an author ignored in her time; others were smuggled out of prisons or built from the bricks of their own suffering. Writers have spent years, have given their lives, lost their fortune and their sanity and their freedom to tell their story, just for you. And when you read their words, they come to life again.

If you haven't read much lately, it's not too late to discover that magic. I believe there are books waiting for you, written with you in mind, even. Somewhere close by on a bookshelf, silent and ready, is your door to a whole new world, and it's longing for you to bring it to life.

Go ahead.