"The normal state of life is loneliness"
Maybe you've seen this sentence more than once, and you've deeply experienced all kinds of loneliness.
Many times, we often close our hearts, trapping ourselves in a lonely world, refusing to be communicated and touched by others. In fact, beyond the closed world, we also have a vast possibility of embracing life and clinging to the beautiful.
"The Island Bookstore": The most difficult moments, brewing the most beautiful morning
The "Island Bookstore" created by American writer Gabriela Zevin tells the story of an isolated island, a bookstore, and several lonely people, whose hearts are dependent on each other, comfort each other, and find the most precious emotions in life.
Actively connecting with the world is the beginning of our love of life
"No one is an island, every book is a world."
A faded sign hangs on the porch of a Victorian-style cottage that says the words. This is what the "Island Bookstore" looks like.
The bookstore sits on an isolated island called "Alice Island," which is run by a man named A.J. Fickley.
No one knows when the unexpected will come, and that's how A.J.'s life is.
One night, his wife was killed in a car accident that plunged A.J. into great loneliness and grief. After losing his wife, A.J. lost his emotional sustenance and spiritual support, and also lost the hope of life, relying on alcohol all day long, and coping with three meals with unhealthy frozen food.
Mean, cold, selfish, decadent, this is the image of the protagonist A.J. Fickley portrayed in the book. Because of the chaos and poor care, the theft of a valuable treasure in his bookstore, Ellen Poe's rare poetry collection Timur, undoubtedly added to his terrible life.
However, an unexpected "encounter" salvaged A.J. from the quagmire of life. One day, he found a girl in the last row of the bookstore aisle that was only two years old. From the letters placed next to her, it was learned that the girl's name was Maya, and that her mother had placed her here before committing suicide.
Just as "God closes a door and opens a window", in the midst of unfortunate despair, people can always find a glimmer of luck. A.J. adopted Maya. The outcast Maya was fortunate to meet A.J., who had a deep heart of goodwill, and maya brought new hope to A.J.'s bitter and desperate life.
A.J. learns how to take care of a toddler from scratch: changing diapers, feeding, bathing, singing lullabies, reading with her, coaxing her to sleep, teaching her life, big and small... In these trivial and busy things, A.J. gradually regained the normal order of life.
The love of affection is the best medicine to heal the soul, two poor people meet in a fortuitous time, and the father and daughter who are not related by blood accompany each other through the most difficult years, perhaps it is the miracle of fate.
In the companionship of day after day, Maya grew up healthy and happy, and she awakened A.J.'s deep warmth and sense of responsibility.
In order to let Maya read the right books, A.J. went to the bookstore with a lot of picture books for young children that he did not like; in order to give Maya better care, A.J., who was originally cold, autistic, and solitary, began to take the initiative to talk to the neighbor women and learn from the parenting experience of others... A.J. slowly opened his heart, became cheerful, and got closer to others.
As A.J. in the book describes himself: "Once a person starts caring about one thing, he finds himself having to start caring about everything."
affair. "Everyone has experienced a closed, painful, low time, and it may be the ordinary and beautiful little things that save us from the hard mud:
A sincere compliment, a gorgeous sunset, a delicious dinner, a casual hug... When we are willing to open our hearts and establish a sense of connection with the world, it will be the beginning of our love for the world and our courage to move forward.
Reading is a self-redemption, facing life with a broader perspective
"A town is not a town without a bookstore." A.J. opened the bookstore because there was no bookstore on Alice Island.
A.J. is old-fashioned and stubborn, often lamenting the decline of paper book reading culture and complaining that e-books have "destroyed" precious reading traditions. It may be far-fetched to blame the decline of literary reading on the way e-books are read, but under the influence of impetuous social climates, it is obvious that people are increasingly less likely to read.
A.J. The current situation of this small bookstore is a microcosm of the operation of bookstores around the world, the business is cold and dismal, there are few visitors, and losses have become the norm.
However, the bookstore's existence, like a lighthouse, illuminates the island and changes the lives of its residents.
Sheriff Lambias, who had barely read before, became keen to host the "Sheriff's Select Book Club", and the residents' interest in reading grew, and unconsciously, everyone developed a relationship with the bookstore.
Because of their reading, everyone on the island has the privilege of seeing the wider world, and their lives have produced all kinds of positive changes.
When Maya, who was only two years old, was put in a bookstore by her mother, her mother left a letter that read: "I want her to love reading when she grows up, and I want her to grow up in a place where there are books, surrounded by people who care about these things." As her mother wished, maya grew up in the infiltration of books.
Maya was once obsessed with her mother's abandonment, but as she grew older and read a lot, she understood the complex human world and the deep emotional world. She reminisced about the past, let go of her grief, reconciled with her mother who was no longer alive, reconciled with her own obsessions, and finally treated the present and the future with a more generous and gentle heart.
"We read books and know we're not alone." Maya's upbringing is the best interpretation of this saying.
Life always has suffering and grinding, and fate will always set up all kinds of problems for people. When you are confused, when you are in pain, when you are lonely, books are the most intimate companions.
When we resonate in the book and find the wisdom and courage to live, we can face this vast and complex world with a braver eye, break through the cage of the soul with a more determined attitude, and continue to move forward.
With a warm pulse, "Island Bookstore" tells the story of lonely people accompanying each other and the redemption of painful souls, with the moving power to heal people's hearts.
As the book says, "Everyone has the most difficult year in their lives, making life beautiful and vast." "The normal state of life is high and low, ups and downs, crossing the most difficult hurdle, and ahead is the wider world." The story of each of our lives can only be written by ourselves.