Have you ever looked at Awesome People Reading? Do yourself a favor and go check it out. Why is it so fascinating to look at people reading? Because we read to know we are not alone.

I like to think this is not even a costume John Cleese is wearing. Just maybe how he reads the paper every morning.

Tom Waits reads. And you can piss off.

Before she was a dame, her formal title was Badass Judi Dench.

I can’t really explain why I think this photo of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Lange reading is so damn sexy. But man, is it sexy.

Pam Grier reads. And fuck you for interrupting her.

Lenny Kravitz. I’m sorry what were we talking about? I just blacked out for a second.

Coco Chanel. I can’t even stand the levels of cool here. The pearls…

If I had ever seen David Bowie reading in an airport, I would have sat perfectly still, the way you act when you see a deer in the wild. I would have studied his face, and tried to figure out what book he was reading, and paid attention to how fast he turned the pages. You know he stopped to think about the good parts, and looked out the window to roll the words around in his head for a minute, before he looked back down to continue.

This is me in 2007, reading the last Harry Potter book. I had taken my oldest son to the bookstore for the midnight release party, then stayed up half the night reading it. The next day we left for a family vacation to San Diego, and I kept sneaking away to read when I should have been taking care of my children. Which sounds like terrible parenting, except that every time I was taking care of the kids, my husband snuck away to read the book.

 This is the only known photo of me in my natural habitat, because fuck you if you interrupt me while I’m reading.