#bibliophobia

[sleepanist-risen]

im reading bibliophobia by sarah chihaya and i really identify with her escapism in a blur of books in childhood. i see that in me reading fanfic when younger day and night and how chihaya states that the matter of the book is unimportant, the important thing is the fact of leaving ones body in favour of the imagined world.

and how much does fanfiction, with its tropes and sometimes repetitive works, especially in small fandoms fit this perfectly, because i would be reading the same story again and again, told in a bit different words. they create a shield around my mind, let me indulge in knowing where they’ll take me and just letting me be silent, unthinking observer

i read hundreds, if not thousands, of fanfics in my pre-teens and teens but the ones i remember by name could be counted on fingers. but i do remember the idea of what they were about. in early 2020s i genuinely couldn’t remember what was happening in my life at that time, besides my commonly reading of fanfiction

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Bibliophobia | Author: Sarah Chihaya | Publisher: Random House (2025)

[exhaled-spirals]

I believe in gazes and touches and atmospheres, but I cannot—and would never—forsake my belief in words. I am most free and real when jostling around restlessly in the human laboratory of dialogue. But dialogue requires someone who will talk back: That is its fundamental rule. It is proof of the lawlessness of love that I could love him when we didn’t even agree that this rule existed.

— Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia

[exhaled-spirals]

— Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia

[exhaled-spirals]

« I had not yet learned that there are ways to read such that books stay with you—in you—forever. I was years away from the understanding that there are certain books that modify your chemical composition so palpably you fear you might no longer breathe air or drink water. And it becomes clear that something ever so slight but important in the way you read the world is altered forever.

These are the books that make us grow up or sometimes realize that we have long since grown up. [...]

A few years ago, I got very interested in the idea that everyone who is incurably obsessed with books has a Life Ruiner. The Life Ruiner is the book that sets you on the path to a life built by and around reading. To call it a Life Ruiner is not to say that a life of letters is necessarily ruination—but rather, to identify it as the book you can’t ever recover from, that you never stop thinking about, and that makes you desperate to reach that frightening depth of experience with other books.

A Life Ruiner [is] the book that will not let you go. It is a book that starts you on a quest, but not a quest that will end in resolution or salvation— rather, a grail quest like the actual Arthurian Grail quest, that can only end in dissolution and further mystery. After you encounter a Life Ruiner, your reading is altered in ways you may not realize until you’ve read ten or a hundred other books and found that you cannot return to the way you read before, or perhaps the way you thought or lived before. I think of the Life Ruiner as the book that first gave you the hot impulse to keep pursuing whatever it was that astounded you about it, to keep peering at it even if it made you feel like your brain was melting, like staring into the sun. »

— Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia

[galindaarduennaa]

Bibliophobia

Galinda put her textbooks down on her desk, sighing after a long day. Tuesdays were always hard because of ending her day with math class. She honestly just wanted to curl up in bed, but she remembered that she had promised Elphie they would go to the book place that evening. After Friday, the weekend had passed without too much incident. She gathered that Elphie had spent quite a bit of time studying. She had continued to avoid Pfannee and ShenShen as best she could (although it had been especially awkward as they shared math class), and she had tried to spend more time with Elphaba. Fiyero had managed to corner her on a few occasions over the weekend, taking her to dinner one night and for several walks around the grounds. Elphie had unfortunately been at the library for most of those occasions, and she still wasn’t feeling anything more when she spent time with Fiyero. She worried he would start to figure it out soon. Hopefully he just thought she was shy or trying to behave as a lady now, because what other excuse could she give for trying to avoid kissing him? Maybe there would be something in the book place that could help with this dilemma.

She gathered up her textbooks and a few notebooks before placing them in a bag. It was around dinner time so Elphie was likely in the cafeteria before she went to the book place. Galinda walked out the door and headed down the stairs and outside. She nervously checked to see if anyone was waiting for her, and when she didn’t see anyone she made her way to the cafeteria to look for Elphaba. She spotted her roommate sitting at a table reading a book. Galinda put together a small tray before making her way over to sit with her roommate. “I am prepared to go to the book place,” she said, sitting down and looking at Elphie. She gestured to her bag of books and notebooks before putting those down, and she smiled. She liked spending time with Elphaba, even if tonight it was going to involve sitting in the book place for hours.

[lazyydaisyyy]

I was always reading for something: first, for comfort, for pleasure, for validation, for comprehension; later, for symptoms, for ideas, for citation, for tenure. And always, secretly, for salvation.

Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia

[lazyydaisyyy]

Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia