I’m a warrior for books, a fierce defender of literature and true stories and science and history, with a belief that through those pages, our humanity forms. I’ve tried to make this case to my boys who loved reading when they were kids and now, as teens, don’t see the purpose. I’ve literally heard, “What’s the point of literature?” in my home, right before I collapsed to the floor and begged them to just kill me now. I’ve tried to explain it, and if you’re still with me, I don’t need to explain it to you—literature reflects our humanity, it reflects the time in which it was written, it puts prose in front of our eyes (or before our ears) and whole worlds unfurl in our minds. What’s the point of literature? Pffft. it ‘s like asking what’s the point of music or good food or a nature walk or an orange-purple sunset. It’s because it makes you feel something. With books, I’d take it a step further: you learn something too.

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