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‘A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.’
I have believed this since I was a kid. Once I start reading I always forget about time and everything around me. Books are like a whole other world, and I never get up until I finish. There are so many aspects of books that only a reader feels and understands.
During my APU admission interview, they asked me what my daily routine would look like once I arrived. I said “I want to go to the library.” Just like that. No hesitation. The interviewer smiled, maybe surprised, maybe expecting me to mention clubs, new friends, or exploring Japan as my first choice. I grew up in a city without a big university. Without enough books. Without that specific kind of quiet that only a library carries. So for years, that feeling was something I only imagined. And when I finally pictured my life at APU — really pictured it — the library was always in that image. Walking through its doors for the first time felt less like entering a building and more like finally arriving at a place I had promised myself I would reach.
The first thing that caught my eye wasn't even a book.
It was the walls. Pictures hanging across the library — paintings, photographs, artwork — and I stopped in front of them before I even reached the first shelf. Maybe it was my deep love for the arts, but something in me always notices these things first. A wall with art on it is never just decoration. It is a mood, a statement, a quiet conversation the space is having with you before you sit down. And the APU library was already speaking to me before I had opened a single page.
I started wandering around the library from the left side of the 1st floor. This was where APU surprised me from the very first shelf. Japanese newspapers, journals in multiple languages, photos of what seemed to be famous Japanese bands.
It was the kind of collection you only find at a university where students from over 100 countries study side by side. A library that quietly holds all of those worlds together inside its shelves.
And I arrived at the last shelf near the elevator. And there it was. My favourite journal: VOGUE. Without wasting a second, I sat down on the carpet, crouched, and began reading. I can tell you a pretty long story about my impressions of that journal — maybe next time.
After VOGUE, I saw a guy come in from the lobby downstairs, passing by the academic writing help desk that is on the left side of the entrance — one of those small but important things APU provides for students who are writing and studying in a second or even third language. He was walking hurriedly — late to class, I assumed — towards the shelves located in the back. He returned some books taking them out of his bag and left just as hurriedly as he came. And I realized I hadn't noticed that shelf. Weird, I missed such a big shelf. It had so many good books — around 300 pages of stories inside each one, all with a similar minimalistic style. Just plain colours: purple for stories specifically for intermediate English learners, white for scripts of famous movies. This is something I really appreciate about APU library — it thinks about students at every level of language. Whether you are just getting comfortable with English or already deep into academic reading, there is something on those shelves for you. I opened them one by one, reading the first 3 pages and the back part to check if it could trigger my interest. And I was successfully failing it one after another. — Gulliver's Travels ... nope, I've read this one before — Clare Balding ... nah, too boring — ...... — The Princess and the Goblin ...
I turned the pages and found: "MacDonald also uses words like excogitated. Some of his sentences are complicated... He wrote for children, not down to them. He didn't confuse being young with being simple-minded."
Yes. This was definitely the one. I sat down on the chair.
The only noise in there was the one being made by the AC — quite a noise actually. But if somebody walked up to me and asked how the basement of the library was, I would say: quiet, silent, and the best place for a reader.
Because once I started reading, the only noise was in my head. The noise of pictures being played while I read. When I got out of the elevator after hitting the 'B' button, a cool breath of air hit me. But sitting there spending hours reading, I only felt hot emotions flowing up and down in my head — driving me to the edge by the plots and secrets of the story that I was having quite a difficult time figuring out.
And I think that is something special about this place. People always say APU campus is where you meet the world — students from dozens of countries walking past each other every day. But I realised that day that it is not only that kind of campus. The library is the same. Maybe even more so. Because on the campus you pass by people. But in the library, you sit with their cultures. I found books from Russian writers, French writers, Spanish writers — and then, in a moment that stopped me completely, a book from a writer of my own country. Right there on the shelf, between all the others, as if it had always belonged. And it had. That is exactly the point. The APU library doesn't just collect books. It collects worlds. And sitting there in the basement with mine open in my lap, all those worlds were quietly sitting beside me.
Library is the home of those feelings. And the APU library, with all its languages, its art, and all its people — felt exactly like home.
Copyright (c) 2016 Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
