We’ve all read those books. The ones that sit in our minds for a month and haunt us while we’re sleeping. The ones that we earnestly try to convince our friends to pick up and read because it probably (absolutely) will change their lives. Our favorite books, the forgotten books, the popular ones, and the irreplaceable ones. We have all read books that should be talks about and never put down.

So many books, so little time – as they say.

With the rise of AI, there seems to be more conversation about how many books we could read if AI simply summarized them. Whether plot, tone, symbolism, character arcs, and word choice. But for many readers around the world, this conversation, or rather the idea of this reality, seems to spark confusion.

Are books not meant to be read? To be placed on a bookshelf and admired as they pocket hundreds of stories waiting to be discovered? Surely AI could never summarize them – not to their fullest anyway. Especially not these.

Alone With You in the Ether : A Love Story – Olivie Blake

A phone call between Regan and Aldo. Her written manic tendencies and how Regan was written to be genetically equipped for a swipe of mascara and a stumble out the door. Aldo and his calculated way of thinking, the brackets that were used to narrate his world until he met Regan. These two characters, dissimilar in many ways, are both written quite staccato – the structure of writing shifting when either character enters the page.

A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara

Count the women in the book. All it takes is one hand. This story, so concrete in its writing, yet firm in its way, writes male friendships. Every word is a necessity to its created world, and so important to its writing structure – prose that does not fly but stands shaking in its ability to tell a story. A heartbreak that can only be felt by human hearts, and should never be attempted to, otherwise.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Shwab

A book that allows you to dream while wide awake. A story that touches generations of people, all yearning to feel words in their fingertips and grow in their imagination – not out of it. This book is written with prose so beautiful that you will lie awake at night painting dreams from memory. You will know what it feels like to be forgotten, as Addie does, and feel what it means to be seen again.