We're celebrating Reading this month in honor of World Book Day, One Dog-Eared Page at a Time (no wait –we have bookmarks!)
At Allport Editions, we’re big believers in the power of the written word, whether it’s stamped on a greeting card, scribbled in a notebook, or pressed between the pages of a well-loved book. To celebrate National Reading Month, we asked the readers on our team to share their favorite books (they were all sad to find out they could only pick 3). True to form, our answers ranged from the poetic to the absurd, the classic to the cozy. Basically, if our office were a library, it would have its own wing for emotional devastation and another just for misfit geniuses.
Based on their bookshelves, here’s a lovingly unscientific analysis of some of my brilliant co-workers. Get to know them the best way I know how: through the stories they return to, recommend, and pretend they don’t quietly build their personalities around.
At Allport: Earl is a key part of the warehouse team, handling picking, packing, and shipping with consistency and care. He keeps things running smoothly and keeps spirits high with a steady rotation of musicals and Mariah Carey. Sometimes he takes requests.
Bookshelf Analysis: A sentimentalist with one foot in this world and the other in a story. These are stories that blur the line between memory and ghost, poetry and philosophy, books that ask the big questions gently, like they’re offering you a cup of tea first. There’s nostalgia here, but it’s the kind that lingers, not clings. Probably gifts his favorite book to people and re-reads favorite lines just to feel them land again.
Remember Me by Christopher Pike – Yes, it’s a murder mystery starring a ghost, but it’s also a surprisingly tender meditation on memory, regret, and what gets left behind when we go too soon. Shari is seventeen, dead, and stuck watching her old life like a movie she can’t change. As she unravels the truth behind her death, what emerges isn’t just a plot twist…it’s the quiet grief of being misunderstood, and the strange peace that comes from finally being seen, even if it’s too late to say anything back.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery – A freckled daydream of a book, bursting with mischief, longing, and the kind of poetic overreactions only a kid who’s survived disappointment knows how to make. Anne Shirley doesn’t just imagine better worlds, she makes them, sometimes out of necessity. It’s the kind of novel that reminds you how vulnerable hope is, and how brave it is to keep choosing joy anyway. And if you’ve ever felt like too much, or like you showed up in the wrong life, Anne will remind you that being misplaced isn’t the same as being unworthy.
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke – A quiet storm of a book. Rilke’s letters, written to a stranger but somehow meant for all of us, aren’t just about art. They’re about how to be a person when your inner life threatens to overtake you. He writes like someone who has seen every season of the soul and still believes in spring. These letters don’t give answers. They give space. They say: yes, this is hard. Keep going anyway.
What I’ve realized while putting this together is that our reading lives are just as different and beautiful as the cards we sell. We love books that ask hard questions, make us laugh unexpectedly, or just remind us that connection is what we’re all here for, whether through words, worlds, or wildly specific lore.
This month, grab something from your shelf… or better yet, someone else’s (support your local library & independent bookstores), and sink into a story. Revisit a favorite, get haunted by footnotes, cry about marshes, spiral over moral philosophy, or finally figure out what’s actually happening in Flatland (if you do, please report back).
So, Happy World Book Day from some of the bookish weirdos at Allport Editions, including myself, who is currently finishing The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (A socially anxious security robot hacks itself in order to be left alone to watch soap operas, but keeps getting dragged into saving humans) and using this post as an excuse to sneak in one last book recommendation. You’re welcome.
Stay tuned to get to know more of the fabulous team that makes up Allport Editions! I might be biased, but I think they’re pretty awesome
Until next time,
Sam