There’s a difference between the books of your life and your favorite books. When we say a book is among our favorites, it means that we loved that story. We may have devoured the lines, running page after page, unable to look away. Or, perhaps, we’ve appreciated slowly, in an attempt to make those words last longer. It means that book is well written (at least, in our perception), that it is of quality. Maybe is a book deserving of awards. A good way to find new things to read is to ask people what are their favorite books.

The books of our lives, however, are something different. They might be great books, or, they might be terrible. They don’t necessarily make good book recommendations. Especially because we are the thing that makes them be what they are. The true distinction between these two categories is that in a “book of someone’s life” there’s no separation between the reader and the book, they become just one. That person is no longer what they we’re before reading it and the book is no longer what it was before being read by them. Therefore, what makes those books magnificent is the person that is reading them, making it a bit useless to recommend those books, since a different person will probably get a completely different result. However, there’s no better way to get to know who a person really is than to know what are the books of their life.

I’ve read one of mine this year. Is called “O livro do Desassossego”, in English: The book of disquiet. While I read the first page, I already sensed the impact that book would come to have on me. And I was right. I’d never seen prettier words than those ones, nor a more sensitive heart, nor had I ever seen sadness look so stunning. My book is filled with post-its, every single page has lines underlined and sentences on the boards. There’s a piece of me in there and there’s a piece of it in me too. The last time I’d read a book that felt like home was when I was just an eight years old girl discovering Hogwarts for the first time (of course Harry Potter is with no doubt, one of the books of my life), having found a little magical safe space to get away from my own reality. The Book of Disquiet doesn’t feel like home in that same way, it is neither warm nor hopeful. But it puts into words things that my brain would not have been able to do by itself.

It’s a hard task to choose only one quote to leave here, but here it goes: “The argonauts said that it wasn’t necessary to live, only to sail. We, Argonauts of morbid sensibility, do well to say that it’s not necessary to live, only to feel.” (In the original: “Diziam os argonautas que navegar é preciso, mas que viver não é preciso. Argonautas, nós, da sensibilidade doentia, digamos que sentir é preciso, mas que não é preciso viver.”).