Photo by WatsonEvansArt in London, United Kingdom.

For Harland Miller, books are akin to jewels: objects with the power to transport the reader regardless of status, class or location. Growing up in working-class Yorkshire, he experienced first hand the transformative potential of a book. His painted book covers are never pristine; they appear well-loved and lived with, like treasured paperbacks passed between generations or discovered in a second-hand bookshop and taken home to quietly change someone’s outlook.

These are books as companions rather than commodities, objects carrying memory, history and possibility.

What’s a book you’ve kept because of who gave it to you?