When I read, I withdraw from the phenomenal world. I turn my attention “inward.” Paradoxically, I turn outward toward the book I am holding, and, as if the book were a mirror, I feel as though I am looking inward. (This idea of a mirror is an analogy for the act of reading. And I can imagine other analogies as well: For instance, I can imagine reading is like withdrawing to a cloister behind my eyes—an open court, hemmed by a covered path; a fountain, a tree—a place of contemplation. But this is not what I see when I read. I don’t see a cloister, or a mirror. What I see when I’m reading is not the act of reading itself, nor do I see analogies for the act of reading.)

When I read, my retirement from the phenomenal world is undertaken too quickly to notice. The world in front of me and the world “inside” me are not merely adjacent, but overlapping; superimposed. A book feels like the intersection of these two domains—or like a conduit; a bridge; a passage between them.

— Peter Mendelsund, What We See When We Read