Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read

Host: The library was a cathedral of silence — a vast hall of dusty sunlight and timeworn shelves reaching toward the vaulted ceiling. The scent of old paper lingered in the air, mingling with the faint perfume of memory. Dust motes drifted in the beams of afternoon light like tiny ghosts of words once spoken.

At the center of it all, between two towering bookcases, sat Jack, his long fingers turning a page with the reverence of a man who knew that every turn was an act of mortality. Jeeny stood beside him, her arms crossed lightly, a faint smile tugging at her lips as she watched him — the kind of smile you give to someone lost in something you understand too well.

The world outside was loud and fast. Inside, it was the slow pulse of eternity.

Jeeny: “Henry David Thoreau once said, ‘Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.’”
Her voice echoed softly through the rows, gentle but sure. “It’s not just about books, is it? It’s about what we choose to give our time to — while we still have time.”

Jack: “You always make him sound prophetic.”
He closed the book, his eyes distant, reflecting the streak of gold light falling across the page. “But maybe it’s simpler. Thoreau wasn’t preaching urgency — he was warning us against waste. Life’s too short for mediocrity, in words or in choices.”

Jeeny: “That’s the same thing, Jack. He’s reminding us to feed our souls first — not fill them.”

Jack: “And how do you know which is which? Every book claims to be the best. Every life claims to be meaningful.”

Jeeny: “You feel it. The best things leave an ache after they’re gone. The bad ones just leave noise.”

Host: The light shifted, catching the spines of books, each title a whispered promise of other worlds. Somewhere in the distance, the clock ticked, patient as wisdom.

Jack: “So what’s your ‘best book,’ Jeeny? The one you’d choose if you had only one left to read?”

Jeeny: “That’s easy,” she said, smiling softly. “The one I haven’t read yet. Hope is the best author.”

Jack: “That’s a poetic dodge.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But that’s the point of reading, isn’t it? To keep meeting the unknown — to stay curious enough to turn one more page, even when you know how it might end.”

Jack: “You sound like life itself is a novel we’ll never finish.”

Jeeny: “It is. And the ending isn’t the point — it’s the underlining.”

Host: The sunlight dimmed, sliding down the rows, brushing their faces in gold before retreating toward the horizon. The library grew quieter still — the kind of quiet that hums, alive with thought.

Jack: “When I was younger, I used to read everything — anything. It felt like consuming the world. But now… I can’t do that anymore. I’ve started putting books down after ten pages if they don’t reach me.”

Jeeny: “That’s not impatience. That’s wisdom.”

Jack: “No, it’s mortality. You start realizing time’s a bookshelf too — and it’s running out of space.”

Jeeny: “Then you understand Thoreau perfectly. The best books first — because every unread masterpiece is a quiet tragedy.”

Jack: “And every wasted hour’s a forgotten sentence.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: A book dropped somewhere in the next aisle — a gentle thud that sounded like punctuation. Jeeny bent down, picked one from a low shelf, and blew the dust from its cover.

Jeeny: “You know, the best books don’t always make you feel good. Sometimes they ruin you — in the right way.”

Jack: “Ruin you?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The good ones rearrange you. They change how you carry silence, how you see strangers, how you forgive yourself.”

Jack: “And the bad ones?”

Jeeny: “They just help you escape what you should have faced.”

Jack: “So books are mirrors.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. They’re windows. The mirrors come later — after you’ve looked through.”

Host: The light outside dimmed into twilight, the color of old ink. The shadows lengthened across the oak floor, stretching like lines of unfinished prose. Jack rose slowly, walking between shelves, running his fingers over the bindings — over names long gone but not forgotten: Tolstoy, Morrison, Dostoevsky, Angelou, Marquez.

Jack: “You think they knew, when they wrote, that someday people like us would be here — trying to catch their ghosts in words?”

Jeeny: “I think that’s why they wrote. So that someone would look for them.”

Jack: “So reading is resurrection.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Of them. Of us. Of everything we almost forget to feel.”

Host: He stopped at a shelf marked Philosophy, and pulled down a thin, worn volume — Walden. The spine cracked softly, the pages yellowed and alive. He held it like something sacred.

Jack: “Thoreau would probably laugh at us, wouldn’t he? Two people romanticizing reading instead of just doing it.”

Jeeny: “He’d tell us to close the book and go walk by the lake.”

Jack: “And then write about the walk.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “But maybe this is our lake — this library. Still water made of words.”

Jeeny: “Then don’t just skim the surface, Jack. Dive.”

Host: The lamplight flickered on, filling the corners where the daylight had fled. The room glowed softly, a cocoon of memory and thought. Outside, the rain began, tapping gently on the windows, its rhythm like the turning of endless pages.

Jack: “You know something strange? I think I’ve spent my life reading everything except myself.”

Jeeny: “Then start there. You might find that the best book was never bound.”

Jack: “And what if it’s unfinished?”

Jeeny: “All good ones are.”

Host: Jack smiled, the first real smile of the night, the kind that reaches the eyes but still trembles. He slid the book back onto the shelf and turned to her.

Jack: “Then maybe the point isn’t to finish the best books — or the best lives. Maybe it’s just to start them before the light runs out.”

Jeeny: “That’s it.”
She nodded, her voice soft, almost a whisper. “To start. To choose the meaningful before it disappears.”

Host: The rain deepened, soft and constant, the world outside fading into a watercolor blur. Inside, the two stood among shelves that seemed to breathe, alive with quiet wisdom.

And as the light flickered once more, Thoreau’s words seemed to echo through the silence — not as advice, but as a commandment for living:

Read the best books first.
Because the best books aren’t always on paper —
sometimes they’re written in the faces beside us,
the lives we choose to live fully,
and the moments we dare not postpone.

The library sighed, timeless, eternal,
as Jack and Jeeny walked out into the rain —
two readers in the unfinished story of being alive.