This may not be the best forum for this, but I actually have a (what I believe to be) really good story about consuming books.
The first time I read Howl by Ginsberg, it was a copy given to me by someone who, as I look back now, was trying to guide my life away from its trajectory at the time. I was young, had, again as I look back now, an un-diagnosed mental illness, and was self-medicating through a combination of illicit drugs and terrible decisions.
This man gave me his copy of Howl that was from 1958. It was one of his most prized possessions. The gift came with a lecture, as did most meetings with this man, about my life and the life of the Beat poets back then. He expressed several lessons that have stuck with me to today. He demanded that I read the book that night and consider its themes.
There are times in your life when conscious decisions have an everlasting impact. I remember, I vividly remember sitting in my car - where I lived at the time - looking at that book after finishing a cold can of Dinty Moore beef stew. It was mid-October. The leaves were turning brown, but not fully brown yet. It was unseasonably warm, and the mosquitoes were bad enough that I had to use a t-shirt cut in half to cover the window opening, just so I could have some air movement without being eaten alive.
And there on my passenger seat was this book. Again, conscious choices. I heard Jim's words, how desperately pleading, but still forceful they were. I think he could see that I was actively trying to burn myself out.
So I picked up his, again, 1958 edition of Howl, and started reading. Jesus that poem. It's just the perfect thing that has ever existed. You can taste the sweat and shit and hate and love that Ginsberg poured into that poem. It's over 60 years old, but FUCK is it still so fresh.
I remember sitting in that car, just devouring that poem (metaphorically). I, for an instant, saw myself dying, and for what? Some weird anger I couldn't let go of about how my parents treated me when I was a kid? About how my life was seemingly unable to straighten itself out?
That book, and I cannot stress this enough, hit me so hard that I broke down. I cried. Ugly, snot faced, loud sobbing, just awful.
And I knew, at that moment, that I needed to get help. I knew that I needed to seek out someone, probably Jim (it was Jim) to help me. And I knew that my life would never be the same from that moment.
I knew that I had to remember this moment for when it got too hard to cope with 'straight' life. I knew that I needed to do something to be able to remind myself that change was now a part of me, not just something I was doing.
I ate the cover of the book.