Category Archives: Reading

Catching Up

Catching Up

“All I have learned, I learned from books.” ― Abraham Lincoln

For many of us, this summer has been an overwhelming whirlwind of engagements and responsibilities, all taken on in the hope of regaining something we lost during the pandemic. Naturally, that’s impossible, and the feeling of inadequacy has left many of us with an emptiness that’s hard to describe. I’m told by psychologists that it’s a matter of expectations, reduced by necessity to a level that can be guaranteed not to disappoint. Things will not be as they were before the pandemic, so we mustn’t expect to feel as we did .

What is it we’re so intent on avoiding if we do take the psychologists’ advice and reduce our expectations now? It would appear it’s just disappointment, and frankly, I think we’ve all learned to live with a lot worse than that. But I do wonder if just taking time off to rest and read more wouldn’t help us find what we lost without actively looking for it. Too many of us have missed our usual summer read. Is that because we can’t find anything that entices us, or is it mostly about not being able to let our minds and imaginations wander because we’re trying too hard to catch up to something? Continue Reading

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful!

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful!

 “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”― Marcus Tullius Cicero That decree to the masses, an order to arrive in Bethlehem to view the newborn son of God, suggests many things. Among them is the inference that there will be many of these ‘faithful’ who should put down whatever they’re doing and… Continue Reading

We Need To Read

We Need To Read

Can you remember the last book you read cover to cover? Of course I can! What a ridiculous question. Except In our hectic lives, a lot of us lack the time or patience to finish a book. Well whose fault is that? Why not make the time and work on the patience?  And after a long day at work we end up spending [wasting] time on less attention-intensive entertainment [substitute mind candy here], like binge-watching Netflix shows. True, but no one can control that addiction but the person whose appetite is out-of-control. Continue Reading