I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure

Host: The morning was grey and restless, a thin fog curling through the alleyways of the old city like smoke searching for a story. The bookstore sat at the corner of a quiet street, its sign half-broken, its windows heavy with dust. Inside, the air smelled of paper, ink, and the faint melancholy of forgotten dreams.

Jack stood between the aisles, his hands in his pockets, staring at a row of books as though they were old friends he no longer trusted. Jeeny entered quietly, shaking the rain from her hair, her eyes soft but curious, taking in the way Jack looked—like a man betrayed by something once sacred.

Jeeny: “You look like you’re at a funeral.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Maybe I am. The funeral of belief. Of truth. Mason Cooley once said, ‘I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.’”

Jeeny: “You sound like him.”

Jack: “Maybe because I feel it. All these years I thought books held the answers. They told me stories about love, courage, redemption. But they lied. None of it prepared me for the world out there.”

Host: A faint light from the window touched the edge of Jack’s face, catching the faint lines beneath his eyes. The dust in the air glittered, suspended like tiny memories of once-bright thoughts.

Jeeny: “Books don’t lie, Jack. They just don’t always tell you what you want to hear.”

Jack: (turns sharply) “No, they lie. They promise meaning. They promise that pain will make sense in the end. But in real life, pain just stays. It doesn’t become poetry—it just becomes heavier.”

Jeeny: “That’s not the books’ fault. That’s ours. We expect them to be maps, when they’re only mirrors.”

Host: Jeeny ran her fingers along a shelf, tracing the spines of novels long unread—Tolstoy, Woolf, Baldwin, Márquez. Her touch was delicate, as if she were apologizing to them.

Jeeny: “Books don’t make you happy, Jack. They make you see. And sometimes seeing is what hurts the most.”

Jack: “Then what’s the point? Why read at all? If truth doesn’t heal, if knowledge only deepens the wound—why keep digging?”

Jeeny: “Because ignorance doesn’t save you either. You can’t heal from what you refuse to look at. Books may not make you happy, but they keep you awake.”

Host: A moment of silence. The rain outside began to fall harder, its rhythm muffled against the glass, like the heartbeat of a restless city.

Jack: “I used to think books were sacred. When I was a kid, I thought every page was a promise. I thought if I read enough, I’d understand life. But the more I read, the less certain I became. The heroes fell apart. The villains made sense. The endings never gave peace.”

Jeeny: “That’s because truth isn’t peace, Jack. It’s restlessness. It keeps you questioning. That’s what real books do—they make you uncomfortable in your own skin until you grow into it.”

Jack: “But what if I’m tired of growing? What if I just want something to believe in again?”

Host: Jeeny looked at him quietly. The rainlight shimmered against her eyes, turning them into small mirrors. She stepped closer, her voice low, tender, but certain.

Jeeny: “Then stop expecting books to save you. They were never meant to. They’re not medicine—they’re conversation. They show you what it means to be human, not how to fix it.”

Jack: “And what if being human isn’t enough anymore?”

Jeeny: “Then you’re not reading the right way. You’re still looking for answers when you should be listening for echoes. Every great book is a confession whispered by someone who hurt just like you.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, though the shadow of disappointment still lingered. He reached for a book—The Stranger by Camus—and held it as if it were an artifact of an extinct faith.

Jack: “Camus said we must imagine Sisyphus happy. I used to think that was profound. Now it just feels cruel.”

Jeeny: “No—it’s human. He meant that happiness isn’t found in the absence of absurdity, but in our defiance of it. You can’t forgive books for not lying to you anymore.”

Jack: “You make it sound noble, but I don’t buy it. Books pretend to understand us. But they don’t bleed when we bleed.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. But writers do. And they leave those wounds behind in words for people like you and me to find. When Baldwin wrote ‘You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read,’—that was his way of saying you’re not alone.”

Host: The clock above them ticked faintly. A soft draft stirred a few pages, making the sound of paper turning itself, as though the books were listening too.

Jack: “You really believe that reading can still change us?”

Jeeny: “Of course. Not because it gives us truth or joy, but because it reminds us both are fragile. Reading teaches humility—how to live without complete answers.”

Jack: “But isn’t that just another kind of resignation?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s the opposite. It’s courage. To keep reading, even when the world doesn’t make sense. To keep searching, even when the words stop holding your hand.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long time, the faintest trace of something returning—perhaps belief, or at least a quieter kind of acceptance. The light from outside had shifted; the rain was easing. The shop glowed faintly gold, as if the world itself was beginning to forgive the morning for being grey.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Mason Cooley was really confessing. Not that books failed him, but that he expected them to love him back.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Books can’t love us, Jack. But they can teach us how.”

Host: The words hung between them, fragile and honest. Jack placed The Stranger back on the shelf and instead picked up a smaller, worn book of poems. He flipped through it, pausing on a single line.

Jack: (quietly) “‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’ Joan Didion.”

Jeeny: “And maybe we forgive them in order to keep going.”

Host: The rain stopped completely now. A soft ray of light fell through the window, touching the bookshelves like a blessing. The dust rose and shimmered, caught in the slow dance of morning air.

Jack smiled faintly, for the first time in a long while. He turned to Jeeny, voice steady but low.

Jack: “Maybe I’ll start reading again. Not to find truth. Just to remember I’m not alone in the lie.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “Then that’s truth enough.”

Host: The doorbell chimed softly as they stepped outside, into a city reborn under the thin veil of light. Behind them, the bookstore stood still and silent, yet somehow alive again, as if its walls had been listening and—at last—had forgiven them too.

The fog lifted. The sky opened. And for a moment, even the unread books seemed to breathe.