The busier life gets, the more I crave a printed page. When I’m tired or frantic from deadlines and travel, I need to put down my phone and pick up a book. And not only because well-crafted sentences sweep me away. I crave books because they’re ad-free, beautiful, and pleasantly weighty in hand. Reading a hardcover on the couch or in bed, I forget about the outside world. The same isn’t true for a screen, whose sidebars and flashing ads urge me to be malcontent with the moment. I recently brought home Lydia Davis’s new essay collection; it’s such a wonderful vibrant green, the color calls out to me on this gray day. And when I open the volume, there are no particles of light blinking back at me. Just words upon words in a calm white sea. The older I get, the more convinced I am that a book is a perfect technology never to be improved upon.
—Jennifer Acker, editor in chief, the Common
Photo credit: Zoe Fisher