Answering the question, "Susan, how do you choose what to read?  How do you find time to read?"

 

February 28, 2008 Newsletter

I have been asked often - how do I read? When do I read? How do I discipline myself to get through books when I'm busy? I don't have a set answer, but was just asked that again yesterday by someone that walked right past the books saying, "I don't have time to read." What I wanted to shake & tell her was, "You don't have time NOT to read." For in books I find a break in routine. I am able to find authors that think like me (even though I didn't realize I was thinking certain ideas before reading their thoughts). I am able to find validation to what I am experiencing in life (being a mother, wife, friend, and self). I don't try to find one book at a time to read. I probably have about 40 books unfinished on my bookshelf pages folded down where I left off. I don't believe that if I begin a book I have to finish it. If it isn't what I am needing right then, or I can't get into a novel then I don't make myself. Time is too short to read what isn't interesting to me, or isn't getting through to me, or that is upsetting me if I don't have the energy to be upset. But I do make it an effort to TRY. To not just automatically turn on the television to escape my tiredness, but to instead pick up a book (often a light light book that I've already read 10 times) when I'm really tired. I am immediately transported into a world that is familiar to me and gives me the emotion that I am seeking. I mark my books all the time. I first put the date right in the cover when I begin a book. Then I underline anything I want to & date the margin. I have automatic flashbacks to specific events that way, knowing personally what that date was, without having to put private information down. I can open a book and be given the same comfort 10 years later or one week later that I was the day of the reading by just flipping to what I had underlined and seeing my notations and the dates. Shows where I was and gives me encouragement to where I now am, or helps me to retry and reset my goals if I might be in the same place!!!

Another way that I learn what to read is from a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt that we've mentioned before. Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. I am trying to discipline myself in my conversations to make them into something that is worth the time for me and who I am talking about. When I got my haircut this week the conversation went on and on about nothing I'd think about later. I then remembered this quote and asked, "What have you read lately?" The discussion at our seat and then the two next to us were then all turned toward books and ideas and encouragement to each other. This wasn't me being "above the heads" of anyone I was with, for I am as normal as anyone on the street wanting to talk about only the latest gossip. But I have tried to learn from this quote and apply it daily to what I try to talk about since life is so fleeting and busy. When I do have a conversation with a friend why not say, "What are you reading? Anything I should read?" You'd be amazed at the ideas you'll get that way. But you have to take it a step further. You have to write down what they told you. Then you have to get the book. That is showing respect to who you asked, validating that if they suggested you read it, you really do look into whether you should or not. You will no longer have the excuse, "I don't know what to read." It is up to you to seek what to read and the main way is by asking those you respect and then taking their suggestion literally. Not just buying the next magazine at the grocery store. That is like TV - you will not take much from it. AND you have a girl that owns a local bookstore that doesn't make you keep any book you don't like - you can return anything. I'm not out anything because I can return the book. So START - you have no excuse. I am busy. That can't be my excuse. Even if I only read 15 minutes before falling asleep that gives me over an hour a week of uninterrupted thinking. And then when I am asleep I have something worth thinking about in my head.

  

 

January 11, 2007 Newsletter

Last night I read the following anthology of the love of books:
In reading a book which is an old favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only have the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of the work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. It recalls the same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any other way.   My books give me the best riches - those of Fancy; and transport us, not over half the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives, at a word's notice!"   Williams Hazlitt, "On Reading Old Books" (1821)

After reading the quote I then glanced over at "my bookshelves" - the books that I cherish. Why do some make the shelves, and some don't? I thought about that last night, going through the books in "my case". What I do when I read is make the book a part of my personal diary. I put the date in the front cover right when I begin. Then throughout the book when something reminds me of a memory, or changes my way of looking at life, or evokes an emotion in me that I want to recall later - I underline that section, and once again put a little date in the margin. Now, when I am lonely, tired, happy, excited, frustrated, bored, any emotion in our realm - I can pick up my history - flip through any book & see 1-2 marks that immediately transport me to a time in my life. Amazing the power to then recreate for me the moment in my life that I had first read the lines. Even the scents/weather/people of that time in my life seem to come alive when I open the pages and reread the marked lines. If you do not yet have "your shelf" or have not yet found books to be a major part of your enjoyment of life - I again encourage you to at least make yourself a little shelf. Go around your house. I'll bet all of you could find a few books of your own - that have shaped who you are. Mysteries, suspense, sports, biographies, travels, children's books - there has got to be at least one that evokes a memory for you. Give yourself the gift of finding out who you are - just give yourself an hour in any bookstore. No matter who you are you will find something that is "you" - that defines you. As you then go through the rest of your life - you will find strength just by flipping through your personal history - what makes and defines you as an individual, what has helped make you unique, what has made you strong.

 

Latin for this week: ex libris - from the library of...

Works Cited: Manguel, Alberto. The Library at Night. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2006.

 

 

June 5, 2008 Newsletter on Importance of Books

Last week I mentioned a book that looked fascinating that now is in my lap. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. This author describes libraries all around the world (from the oldest to some present-day), including libraries within our own homes. He talks about why we as humans are fascinated with print and with organizing books, collecting books, and surrounding ourselves within our homes with books that have affected us (or have the potential to). I especially appreciated his writings on the confiscation of books during WW2. Here is only a sampling of his writings...

Libraries have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places...I feel an adventurous pleasure in losing myself among the crowded stacks..."My library," wrote Petrarch to a friend, "is not an unlearned collection, even if it belongs to someone unlearned." My books know infinitely more than I do, and I'm grateful that they even tolerate my presence.

On reading for pleasure before going to sleep: The various qualities of my readings seem to permeate my every muscle, so that, when I finally decide to turn off the library light, I carry into my sleep the voices and the movements of the book I've just closed...my reading at night will feed my dreams not only with the arguments, but with the actual events of the story. Reading about Mrs. Ramsay's boeufen daube makes me hungry, Petrarch's ascension of Mount Ventoux leaves me breathless, Keats account of his swimming invigorates me, the last pages of Kim fill me with loving friendship, the first description of the Baskervilles' hound makes me look uneasily over my shoulder...I must allow my other senses to awaken - to see and touch the pages, to hear the crinkle and the rustle of the paper and the fearful crack of the leather spine, to smell the wood of the shelves, the musky perfume of the bindings, the acrid scent of my yellowing pocket books. Then I can sleep. (I love that line!)

On unpacking books after a move: Unpacking books is a revelatory activity. Writing in 1931, during one of his many moves, Walter Benjamin described the experience of standing among his books "not yet touched by the mild boredom of order," haunted by visions of the times and places he had collected them, of the circumstantial evidence that rendered each volume truly his...a ticket fluttering away from an opened book reminded me of a tram ride in Buenos Aires...a name and phone number inscribed on a fly-leaf brought back the face of a friend long lost who gave me a copy of the Cantos...a paper napkin with the logo of the Cafe de Flore, folded inside...attested to my first trip to Paris...a letter from a teacher inside a collection of Spanish poetry made me think of distant classes where I first heard of Gongora dn Vincente Gaos...Books have their own fates. (Maurus). Some of mine have waited half a century to reach this tiny place in western France, for which they were seemingly destined...(his personal library at his feet falling out of boxes)...I loved that, too! I see notes, tickets, cards from friends, grocery lists, all tucked into my books - reminding me, as they fall out, of emotions and memories of specific moments in my life, the friends of that time period, the smells of specific locations, emotions only known to me that come back to my mind - kept secretly tucked away in my books. I love that!

Affect of books on our daily lives: Books may not change suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination. It may be that there is no book, however well written, that can remove an ounce of pain from the tragedy of Iraq or Rwanda, but it may also be that there is no book, however foully written, that does not allow an epiphany for its destined reader. Robinson Crusoe explains, "It may not be amiss for all people who shall meet my story to make this just observation from it, viz., how frequently in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into it, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very same means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again." This, of course, is not Crusoe speaking, but Defoe - the reader of so many books....(On secrets held by a page in the Dead Sea Scrolls...We know that the body is corruptible and the stuff of which it is made impermanent. But we also know that the soul [and I, the scrolls' future reader, will inject, "the book,"] is immortal and imperishable."

Appreciation of over-abundance of books available to us today: In the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, a copy of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain was passed around among the inmates. One boy remembered the time he was allotted to hold the book in his hands as "one of the highlights of the day, when someone passed it to me. I went into a corner to be at peace and then I had an hour to read it."...Another young Polish victim, recalling the days of fear and discouragement, had this to say: "The book was my best friend, it never betrayed me; it comforted me in my despair, it told me that I was not alone." ...Visitors often ask if I've read all my books; my usual answer is that I've certainly opened every one of them...the library need not be read in its entirety to be useful; every reader profits from a fair balance between knowledge and ignorance, recall and oblivion...I have no feeling of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days. They don't require that I pretend to know them all...The forgotten volumes of my library lead a tacit, unobtrusive existence. And yet, their very quality of having been forgotten allows me, sometimes, to rediscover a certain story, a certain poem, as if it were utterly new. I open a book I think I have never opened before an come upon a splendid line that I tell myself I mustn't forget, and then I close the book and see, on an endpaper, that my wiser, younger self marked that particular passage when he first discovered it at the age of twelve or thirteen...

Those who read, those who
tell us what they read,
Those who noisily turn
the pages of their books,
Those who have power over
red and black ink,
and over pictures,
Those are the ones who lead us,
guide us, show us the way.
       Aztec Codex from 1524, Vatican Archives

There is no end to this book and all that you will get from reading about the history of books, the history of collections of books, and the power of learning through books imprinted in the minds of those whose personal, tangible books were destroyed in war and tyranny. We have no idea what a treasure we have - the overabundance of books everywhere we go. From little supermarkets to large mega-stores to the internet. Books right now are so available. Are you reading and imprinting your mind with learned authors? When you do not have a book in your presence do you have the words in your mind for your strength and wisdom? If books were taken from us, would you have enough wisdom and thoughts in your mind from your readings now that they are readily available? I ask myself the same questions. Let's not take for granted what we have. Spend the money on true literature and learning, not just on magazines to pass your evenings. I just keep my books near at hand. I don't read very long at a time, but I read little bits often throughout the day. I have the same busy schedule that you do. But because of the example and encouragement of my husband, I was fortunate to be encouraged to surround myself with books. To make my water-heater room our library. See, we even had the desire to name this room "library" - knowing that meant a room full of our memories, our hopes, our encouragements, our dreams, our wisdom. Do you have that desire? Just begin - I promise you that with the same price as a drive-through at McDonalds, your life may be changed. Have a great week, I hope you stay safe with these storms. No matter what happens in any of our futures, we know that there will be given to us a peace we will not understand. Thank you for letting me type for you today. You give me the reason to open the books - to find something for us all to think about this week. Go take on your day and make yourself proud of what you think about and act upon that no one else will be aware that you did. Susan

 

I found a new favorite poem this week - a book on a mantlepiece talking to his/her owner in the room, offering her "jewels of wisdom and treasures" - wisdom, truth, faith, travel.  Is there a book that looks down on you in your home, speaking the words of this poem?  Following the poem I will write out of a book that gives me motivation to continue to try to read and have quiet times to think in my day.  This book comes down off the shelf, motivates me, then goes back on the shelf.  I seem to go back into times where I have no goals for self-contemplation and reading, then, when I find how disillusioning that lifestyle is, I pull this book down again...one book on my shelf that offers me guidance for reading, for how to read, what to read, reasons for reading and thought.  Seeing self-education as a lifetime goal, one that seems to easily slide, but if a lifetime goal, can be brought down again and again to give me encouragement to start over again.  I hear so often in the store, "Susan, you love to read, you have time to read..."  Then the following statements of, "I don't have time to read," or, "I don't like to read."  I answer those only by giving encouragement to not state that to yourself.  Instead change your thinking to, "My life is so short, a gift from God...how can I use the gift of life to please my Creator?  How can I develop my mind, learning from those generations before me, then giving me the ability to train my own mind and those I am with...continually longing for growth, filling my "chasms of time" wisely?"  One chance.  Life.  One epitaph to write.  One epitaph to write tonight on our moments today.  How will we fill the "chasms of time"?