We read to lend words to our expe­ri­ence. As we read, we trans­late, as it were, the author’s words into our own expe­ri­ence, enlarg­ing the mean­ing of those words, gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion. Not find­ing just any mean­ing, of course, if we read hon­estly, but mean­ings that many times escaped even the author, who is often the least shrewd of the read­ers of that text. We read to under­stand our intu­ition of the world, to dis­cover that some­one a thou­sand miles and years away has put into words our most inti­mate desires and our most secret fears. Reading is a col­lab­o­ra­tive act.

— Alberto Manguel

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#experience