Some books are read for understanding.
Others are read for warmth.
This one was the second.
84, Charing Cross Road isn’t a book I fully understood in the traditional sense. Many of the literary references passed over me quietly, like names spoken in another room. I didn’t pause to research them. I didn’t feel the need to catch every meaning.
Instead, I stayed for the feeling.
The letters move gently, almost shyly. There’s no rush to impress, no urgency to explain. Just two people, separated by distance, bound together by books and a shared attentiveness to words.
What stayed with me wasn’t the knowledge exchanged –
it was the affection.
The way kindness unfolds slowly when it isn’t trying to be noticed.
The way care shows up in small, thoughtful gestures.
The way familiarity grows not through proximity, but through patience.
Reading this book felt like sitting quietly beside a conversation that wasn’t meant for me – and being welcomed anyway.
I realized something while reading it in fragments, never all at once:
this is how I want to love books.
Not by finishing them quickly.
Not by understanding everything they offer.
But by letting them accompany me.
This story didn’t demand interpretation. It invited presence.
And maybe that’s the kind of reading I’m learning to value more now –
the kind that doesn’t ask what did you get from this?
but instead asks how did this sit with you?
Some books don’t need to be decoded.
They just need to be held.
And 84, Charing Cross Road felt like that –
a quiet exchange,
a shared cup of warmth,
a reminder that loving books slowly is still a way of loving them deeply.
If you’ve read this book, I’d love to know how it stayed with you.
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