Sometimes I lend my books to people. But sometimes the books do not come back to me. There are days when I forget I lent them, and I look for them in my house. After searching, I finally think, “Maybe I lent this book to someone.” In this way, many books have left my hands.

I sometimes buy the same book again. But the new book is not the same as the one I lent. The content is the same, but the book itself feels different. The old book was special in its own way.

I finished reading Sono Hon wa by Naoki Matayoshi and Shinsuke Yoshitake.

While reading it, I remembered the books that left me in the past.

When a book leaves my hands, it starts a new time. It is no longer part of my story. It begins to live in another place, in someone else’s time.

The interesting thing about Sono Hon wa is that it has no usual story. But the simple explanation of the book creates a story by itself.

It talks about the book’s features. It talks about how the book exists. It talks about the distance between a book and a person.

Even with only these explanations, the image of “that book” slowly appears. It feels like a quiet story is growing page by page.

I also think about this: How many books in the world are never read?

Sometimes I borrow an old book from the library, and the card is completely blank. Then I know, “I am the first reader.” When I open such a book, I feel that the long-closed time begins to move again.

The dry smell of paper. The tight pages that no one touched. The quiet years when no one read it.

When I open the book, these things begin to breathe slowly. I feel that the unread time is also part of the book’s story.

The books that left me may now be living quietly on someone’s shelf. They may help someone in an important moment of their life. Or they may stay unread, living in another kind of silence.

In any case, the books that left my hands continue their own time in places I do not know.