Viewing cooking shows
Watching, yet never taste test—
Counting calories
Pushing shopping cart
Faster than flashy Corvette—
Speed up–kids at play!
Gifted three-year old
Earning Phi Beta Kappa—
Reading picture books
When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.
But life never lets you go, does it? You can’t put down life the way you put down a book.
Julian Barnes (born 1946) is an English writer. He has also written fictional crime dramas under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh.
Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.
Let your face speak what’s in your heart.
Ohio-born Toni Morrison (1931-2019) experienced the ultimate tributes given any novelist when she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for her ground-breaking novel BELOVED and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Her many awards and published works were a testament to her gifts as a writer.
A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.
Resolve to edge in a little reading each day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
Horace Mann (1796-1859) was committed to educational reform in the United States. One of his most passionate causes was for the establishment of universal public education for America’s children.
Searching the local bookstore for one of the all-time classics to read, I find myself wandering the nearly infinite rows of bookcases, overflowing with books of every kind. I am not looking for just any book, mind you. My reading appetite hungers for something rich in prose, but the book needs to fit my personal definition of a classic.
As I walk around, my eyes notice many classics of American literature. I flip through pages of book after book. Hmm, “not this one” becomes my common response. Frustration is beginning to set in, and the time is growing late.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
While these books would fill many lists of some of the most treasured novels to read, my appetite is still looking for something with the “crowning glory” of literature. My vigilant book search continues.
Coming around a corner, the final section of the enormous store is laid out in front of me. This overly small section of is buzzing with activity. A large gathering of book lovers are digging all over its shelves. What stories are these readers of classic literature finding here?
“Jonah and the Whale”
“Moses Leads Israel Home”
“Daniel in the Lion’s Den”
“David vs. Goliath”
“Abraham and Isaac”
“Noah Builds an Ark”
Feeling the excitement now as well, my eyes capture a beautiful volume with the above stories, but I also discover “The Greatest Story of All-Time” about a Galilean named Jesus Christ.
My spiritual journey has finished at last. The Holy Bible will fill my spiritual hunger for an eternity. Amen!
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful.
True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must remain the memory of previous dreams.
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) contributed to French culture as a philosopher. His writings are quite extensive.
Photo by Ivo Rainha on Pexels.com
Searching the local bookstore for one of the all-time classics to read, I find myself wandering the nearly infinite rows of bookcases, overflowing with books of every kind. I am not looking for just any book, mind you. My reading appetite hungers for something rich in prose, but the book needs to fit my personal definition of a classic.
As I walk around, my eyes notice many classics of American literature. I flip through pages of book after book. Hmm, “not this one” becomes my common response. Frustration is beginning to set in, and the time is growing late.
While these books would fill many lists of some of the most treasured novels to read, my appetite is still looking for something with the “crowning glory” of literature. My vigilant book search continues.
Coming around a corner, the final section of the enormous store is laid out in front of me. This overly small section is buzzing with activity. A large gathering of book lovers are digging all over its shelves. What stories are these readers of classic literature finding here?
Feeling the excitement now as well, my eyes capture a beautiful volume with the above stories, but I also discover “The Greatest Story of All-Time” about a Galilean named Jesus Christ.
My spiritual journey has finished at last. The Holy Bible will fill my spiritual hunger for an eternity. Amen!
Photo by KML on Pexels.com
Big Sky Buckeye 