We find cozy places to read in our home so we can get lost inside of a book. Reading–as one of life’s greatest pleasures (at least for me)–allows new worlds and experiences to open for us, and I love encouraging it now that every family member can read.
“Go to the bookshelf and find a book to get lost in,” I tell the youngest. She snuggles up by the window with a big pillow beneath her head, and she goes inside the book.
Just yesterday, a friend’s older daughter gave my daughters her old books from her pre-teen years. Driving away from her house with a treasure box of books, I can hardly wait to introduce my youngest to new characters and new adventures: Winnie Foster in Tuck Everlasting, Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, and more of Nancy Drew.
I lose myself inside of a book. I love that feeling that time has passed, and I’ve been somewhere else, unaware, at peace, and full of joy.
It’s that way with writing, too. My oldest says she feels that way working on a certain school project or with knitting. For my husband it’s woodworking and gardening.
But for all of us, it’s reading.
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What’s on your summer reading list? I like to reread my favorites from high school including A Separate Peace, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby. Throw in some Steinbeck and some poetry anthologies, and I’m one happy reader!
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I want to read “The Great Gatsby,” too – for the first time. My list includes “A Thousand Suns” by the author of “The Kite Runner,” “The World Until Yesterday” by Jared Diamond, “The Way of Ignorance” by Wendell Berry, and a study/reading program on critical care nursing.
BTW, my favorite memory of reading, well, two: one, my dad, when I was in the fourth grade, told me to go open a drawer in a desk in our living room; there was a signed book by Marguerite Henry, “Mustang,” she of “Misty of Chincoteague.” He remembered how we once had gone to see and procure a book from her, so when he ran into another book signing w/o me, he brought me a most pleasant surprise.
Second, the Christmas before my mom died, my parents visited me in MO. I looked up and noticed, we had on no TV, no radio, but we each were in a chair by a light, reading…lost in books.
I love this memory! Thank you for sharing it!