G. K. Chesterton once mused that “the poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
No odes to brie. No tragic sonnets about cheddar. Literature it seems has its limits.
Love, however, does not.
Writers have been writing about love for as long as they’ve been writing, returning to it again and again with the stubborn belief that language might eventually catch up. Poem after poem. Novel after novel. Always another attempt. Not because the previous ones failed, but because the subject keeps exceeding its container.
Raymond Carver, at least, was honest: “It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about love.”
Reading asks for the same humility. It's its own kind of love affair. Possibly the strangest one. You give time, real, unreturnable time, to a voice that isn’t yours. You stay through confusion. You forgive slow beginnings. You leave, you return, you reread, you change.
Books don’t punish absence. They don’t demand certainty. They don’t require you to be the same person twice.
One of the greatest love affairs of my life has been this long, unreasonable commitment. Nothing dramatic. Not always tidy. Not always comforting. But patient, durable, quietly transformative, and always waiting for my return.
Books don’t pretend to know what love is. They simply keep showing up.
This month, I want to do the same, by sharing my love for books with as many people as possible, and by inviting others to do the same.
So here's a small invitation:
If there’s a book, a passage, or even a single line that has stayed with you, share it with someone in your life who you think might need it. Pass a book on. Send a quote. Leave a note in the margin. Reading survives because it’s shared, person to person, and it’s a practice worth standing up for if we want it to thrive in the future.
If you’re open to sharing that moment publicly, I’d love to see it.
Post what you’re reading. A shelf you love. A book that waited for you. A page you keep returning to.
Tag The Story Station and use #StillShowingUp as a small way of standing up for reading, and for the kind of attention it asks of us. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.
At the end of February, I’ll choose three readers to receive a blind date with a book, each one a new book by a South African author, wrapped and chosen by me. Because sharing a love of books should also mean supporting the voices writing them, here and now.
P.S. Yes, this does all happen to fall around Valentine’s Day.
Consider it a reminder that books make excellent companions, last longer than flowers, and are far less likely to disappoint by the 18th.