Books bring colour to my simple life and if I have a book in my hands, it feels like I'm always connected with the world. Whether I'm bored, lonely, upset, depressed, books soothe me and everything feels all right again.

One thing that has changed me deeply since becoming a bookseller is this: my appreciation for people who do this work purely out of love for books.

And along with that, how seriously I now take book recommendations.

A simple book recommendation can be a ray of hope to someone who is barely holding on. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve felt it happen. And maybe that’s why I now go out of my way to read books about books—because they often lead you to the most meaningful recommendations of all.

Recently, I read Every Day I Read by Hwang Bo-reum, the author of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop—another book very close to my heart. This book feels like a book lover’s dream. It doesn’t lecture you or overwhelm you. It feels like a gentle, unhurried conversation with someone who understands the quiet power books hold.

I found myself nodding along to almost every page, marking passages, circling titles, mentally building a reading list that kept growing with each essay. I was telling a friend how this would be such a perfect starting point for someone who wants to get into reading but doesn’t quite know why they should keep going. This book gives you those reasons—softly, patiently.

And the sad irony is that it will probably never be picked up by a non-reader, even though it’s precisely the kind of book they would enjoy.

Around the same time, I was talking to another friend— a non-reader—who told me how boring his life felt. Not dramatically sad, just quietly dull. The kind of boredom that comes from days blending into each other, from feeling like nothing new is really happening. I listened, nodded, and understood him. But as he spoke, my mind drifted to a book I had recently finished—I Who Have Never Known Men—and how it had completely altered the way I looked at freedom, suffering, and what it even means to live.

It wasn’t that my life was more exciting than his. It wasn’t that I had more things going on. But books had given me something extra—an inner expansion, a way of seeing beyond my immediate surroundings. They offer borrowed lives, unfamiliar griefs, quiet joys, and perspectives we may never encounter otherwise. And in that moment, I realized the quiet tragedy isn’t that non-readers are missing out on “better” lives—but that they may never know how much more life can be felt, held, and understood through stories.

This isn’t about thinking readers are superior. It’s not about productivity or intelligence or taste. Life is already heavy enough. Books don’t replace it—they soften it. They sit beside us and say, you’re not alone in this. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

I could have told my friend to read a book. But I know that kind of advice rarely lands. Reading isn’t something you force—it’s something you stumble into, often when you need it most.

Every Day I Read is a collection of short essays on how to read, what to read, how to balance classics with contemporary works, how books help us, how to read more, and even how to socialize with books. It reminds you that books don’t demand perfection or discipline; they ask only for presence.

Which is why this book is exactly the kind of book a non-reader should read.

And also exactly the kind of book a non-reader will ignore.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because books have always been quiet like that—waiting patiently for the moment someone is ready to listen.