RSS Feed One of the Nation's Most Honored Weekly Newspapers |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Few things compare to anticipation of reading a good book
These past few weeks, I didn't talk with a single NJC student loading up for a spring break of beach bound debauchery. Although, I know the tradition lives on, more and more students are choosing positive spring break activities such as working, visiting senior colleges, studying, and mission trips. My mind wandered this week as I contemplated the oncoming break. Unfortunately, administrators are not granted a spring break week, but that does not inoculate us against bouts of spring fever. Warming temperatures, longer days, and greening grass strain my ability to focus and draw my attention from work duties. Thoughts of beach trips and warm languid days remind me of books that beg to be read. I love books. A myriad of modern entertainment forms featuring splashy electronics, whizbang special effects, and gee-whiz gadgets compete for my attention, but none comes close to the warm, intimate experience of reading a brilliant book. At various times in life, different authors and types of books will hit that special spot, illuminating some cobwebbed corner of my mind. I have been inspired by biographies, moved and challenged by fiction, and enlightened by travel books describing adventures in remote lands amidst little known cultures. Books appeal to people's better nature. They require the reader to sit still, think, and perhaps even contemplate the author's purpose. There are no cheap thrills in great literature or in well written books of history, science, and travel. Finding time to read is so rare and precious that I insist on reading only books that might improve my mind, my outlook on life, or my understanding of people. My favorite author must be William Faulkner. I return to his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi year after year to walk among his characters. Faulkner looks with a steady, unflinching eye into the human soul. He peels back the layers of our motivations exposing the separations that often exist between our desires and our realities. I've grown to know generations of families that populate his fictional southern community, and I've grown genuinely fond of them. I look forward to my next trip to Mississippi through the eyes and pen of Faulkner. I also adore the tactile experience of books. There is no substitute for holding and experiencing a book. I treasure old books that have survived decades of readers and scholars. Unexpected insight may come from the thoughts of previous readers who jotted notes in the margins of a well aged book. Sometimes I find a previous reader discovered a completely different meaning than I inferred from a passage. Receiving an eagerly anticipated book is always an experience to relish. Taking hold of a newly acquired book and drinking in the font, the paper type, the cover art and the opening lines is an experience that delights every book lover. I don't mind, and often prefer, old, used books, but I want the hardback edition, with dust jacket if possible. I want to experience the book's original qualities and character. No electronically produced media or gadget can compare with the thrill of discovering a talented author or a special book that speaks directly to the heart of the reader. Whether it be a newly published author who has hit a home run, or a famous author that I've just come around to reading; that new discovery makes my heart sing. Reading a book and finding inspiration through a genuine connection to the author is an exquisite experience. This spring and summer I will carve a bit of time from my overpopulated schedule to sit languorously on my front porch with a good book in hand, selfishly enjoying spring while tripping through the imagination of a talented author, or perhaps through some bygone era, or maybe reliving an adventure for the ages in Arctic exploration or through the heart of Africa's rain forests. Nothing beats the combination of a beautiful, blue sky day and a fabulous book.
|
for larger version       Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information |
||||||||||||||||
