The beautiful stillness
One of our bookshelves, December 2012
“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head.” ― Paul Auster
Even when life is the craziest and most chaotic, I always read myself to sleep at night. It’s often the only time of day that I make time to read a book, but no matter how late it is, I read at least a little bit, just long enough to drift off. It keeps me from lying awake worrying about everything else.
Reading is undoubtedly a comfort, consolation and stimulant of choice at other times, too. Whether it’s email, a letter, a newspaper, a magazine or the back of a cereal box, I cannot imagine going very long without reading something. It’s my preferred method of staying in touch with people I care about, as well as the way I learn, think, and survive. It’s as necessary to my well-being as food and water. I really believe that.
Readers today are blessed as never before with unlimited sources and choices for reading material. Audiobooks, digital readers and quick, free downloads from the public library have increased our options exponentially. Whenever I feel overwhelmed or depressed, the thought of having so much reading, just waiting for me wherever and whenever I am ready for it, brightens my day.
If you have a Kindle, Nook or other e-reader and need help finding a public library near you from which to download free audio and electronic books, let me know. I’d be glad to help you find one. Do you have a favorite author, series, or great book to recommend? There’s no better time than winter to share the joys of reading!
One year ago tomorrow*
*I switched the “one year ago” posts for today and tomorrow because the topics matched better. The post from one year ago today will appear with tomorrow’s blog post.
This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: audiobooks, books, bookshelves, comfort, company, consolation, ebooks, ereaders, hobby, interest, libraries, literacy, literature, novels, pastime, reading, stimulation, volumes
Defeat Despair 