I love to read. I don’t plug in a device to hear a book being read to me. I like the weight of a book in my hands, the smell and feel of the pages. I’m not a fast reader. My husband, Rick, reads three to four books to my one, but he says I remember the ones I’ve read. That’s not always true. I take notes. More often, I put little dots on pages where there is something that I want to write in my quote collection. Every book has something to teach me, even the poorly written ones.
It’s exciting to dive into another person’s mind and heart. Each writer has a voice, like a fingerprint or the iris of the eye. God made each of us unique, and therefore worth getting to know. It’s easy when people write. A reader gets to know a stranger through their characters and story, their style of writing, the themes they choose.
People have asked me who my favorite author is, and my favorite is whomever I happen to be reading at the time. I do have those on a pre-order list and look forward to getting a heads up when a new book is coming out, but most are random picks that caught my eye or were mentioned by some other reader who enjoyed the journey.
As I read a book, I enter into a special kind of relationship where I see the world, life, and people through another set of eyes. Good writers make you forget yourself and live vicariously through their characters. I’ve traveled through time, to other continents, even to other planets. I’ve lived underground with earthworms, built dams with beavers, snuggled into rocky underwater crags with octopi and flown the world with honeybees. I’ve solved mysteries and been frightened by rampaging dinosaurs. A reader lives a very exciting life!
Books don’t just happen. They are created. What do writers say about their work?
“My task is to chronicle those little daily lacerations upon the spirit.” Leo Tolstoy
“Sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” Red Smith
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a love sickness…” Robert Frost
“I’ve been through some horrible things in my life – a few of which actually happened.” Mark Twain
“Just like God made Balaam’s ass talk, God can make a book talk.” Robin Lee Hatcher
“If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life.” Madeleine L’Engle
Just a few from numerous spiral notebooks… the point being, every book is a peek into the soul who wrote it.
Alas, our shelves are full again. Time to purge, stack them on the hearth for friends to take, or line up in Costco strawberry flats to drop off at the nearest “gently used” bookstore. Back to the Indie stores and Amazon for more. Read on! So much to explore! So much to learn! Read on!