The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most. 
--Confucius
 
A book is a gift you can open again and again.
--Garrison Keillor
 
The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.
--Harper Lee
 
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. 
--Groucho Marx
 
All of these quotes are true, although one is funnier than the others. After going to a few book launches last week, my personal book quote would be: “A book really comes alive and fulfills its purpose when it is read, shared, and talked about”. Doesn’t come from the mind of a genius, I know, and I’m probably not the first one to think about it, but as the Canadian writer Laurence J. Peter once said: “Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.”
 
The majority of readers meet a book for the first time while browsing in a library or in a bookstore. Or in the case of Groucho Marx, maybe even in a dog. As a sales representative for publishers, I can accompany a book through the different steps of its creation, and I follow it from the raw or almost unedited manuscript to the advance reader’s copy, from variations of possible covers all the way to the bound and publishable product; I can follow its development and improvement until it stands on its own on a shelf, or lies on a table ready to be examined, manipulated, and hopefully purchased.
 
Still, the book hasn’t fulfilled its purpose yet. If someone reads it and then goes on to another book, the purpose is not entirely accomplished either. It might have served the reader, maybe enlightened her and changed her life, but until that reader starts talking about the book, it hasn’t lived a full life. And then, it needs to change hands, to be introduced in someone else’s life and be transformed, maybe slightly maybe beaucoup, by the new ways it is now seen, read, and possibly interpreted.
 
In the past three months, I have been to many book launches (or book births) where proud writers have presented their new babies, have talked about them–sometimes with restraint or shyness even; sometimes with overwhelming passion or cockiness even— they have read from them, and have even sold and signed copies of them. Some of the books were gorgeous little pieces of art, others just poorly designed, but their exteriors were not necessarily representative of their content. Sometimes they were.
 
Some of these books were acclaimed, embraced and purchased, some received lukewarm attention, and others might have been entirely neglected, rejected, or not taken seriously –rightfully or not. Nevertheless they are, all of them, alive in the world now, and keeping readers alive. Which reminds me of American writer Robert Byrnes, who pointed out: “No one ever committed suicide while reading a good book; but many have tried while trying to write one”. 
 
Happy reading!