June Wilcox, owner of M.Judson Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina, has always been a reader. In this exclusive essay from Trope's The Reader, she shares her thoughts on the significance of reading and the emotions it evokes. Featuring over 120 images from 19 photographers, The Reader captures people from around the world lost in the timeless act of reading.
Reading is a wildly efficient pastime. It's not tide or temperature dependent, no equipment is needed, no group chat trying to find a time that works for everyone. All it takes is you and a book (and perhaps some reading glasses) and you're plunged into medieval Scotland, or tangled in a family drama, or learning something new.
Writing is equally solitary. Set a human with a beautiful imagination and a gift for weaving words in front of a blank page and whole new worlds are spun.
Two fully solitary activities whose alchemy creates community. Magic.
M.Judson Booksellers opened ten years ago in the heart of downtown Greenville, South Carolina. For a decade, two questions have opened nearly every customer conversation in the store and if we're honest, almost every conversation with each other as well: What are you reading now? and What's the last thing you read that you loved? Two surprisingly intimate questions. The answers help illuminate the path to your next favorite book, but they also say something about who you are, what you love, what you're drawn to. Afterall, as Frank Navasky reminded us, "You are what you read."
Storytelling is in our DNA. Whether on clay, papyrus, parchment, or paper, stories have been used for thousands of years to make sense of what it means to be human. Reading stories, we see the world through another's eyes, find meaning and a reminder that we all, actually, have a lot in common. A shared love of story is a hot-wired connection powered by a common understanding: stories matter, we are part of each other's stories, there's joy here.
The feeling is familiar: seeing someone reading a book you loved and the next thing you know, you're in conversation with a stranger; the family gathering where a heated debate breaks out about whether the book was better than the movie (of course it was); the certainty that you were alone until you joined a book club, and now it's five or twenty years later and you can't imagine a life without your people.
At the store, we have had a decade of witnessing thousands of examples of the love of reading as the connective tissue of community; watching people find their people, grow in empathy and understanding, and delight in the joy of talking to authors about the art of crafting stories into truths.
Five strangers from different cities randomly seated at the same table at an author lunch three years ago who now have returned to be together every month since.
A 16-year-old aspiring chef sitting around the community table talking with mothers and grandmothers about making Edna Lewis' pan-fried chicken recipe from The Taste of Country Cooking.
The eldest member of a book club, 83, discussing A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with the youngest member, 23.
A wedding in the foyer of one of our own, marrying a regular customer.
The local baker's excitement when asked to make a cake for Hernan Diaz, who found out hours before his appearance at the store that Trust had won the Pulitzer.
The Sci-Fi Fantasy book club turned found family who is as quick to respond to a debate about the latest N.K.Jemisin as it is to a call to help another move, or gather donations for hurricane victims.
Building community and connection through shared experience: seeing and being seen. A spark ignited from two completely individual activities - a flame that gets passed from reader to reader to reader, growing the light without diminishing one's own.
So, what're you reading?
June Wilcox
Owner, M.Judson Booksellers
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