In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures. – Robert Louis Stevenson
A Gossip on Romance, printed in Longman’s Magazine (November 1882).
From my childhood days, I have always been fascinated by books. I took all the images in this collage at one of my favourite bookstores in Toronto. I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” in my childhood home and was transported to different worlds. He really expresses well how a good story or book impacts us at the time of its reading and long afterwards. While he was talking about a romantic story, many other well-written stories have a similar effect.
Even in this age of Kindle, computers, and other electronic devices, there is nothing like holding a favourite book close to one’s heart. It’s a wonderful adventure to visit a bookstore or library and select a few books and magazines and just thumb through them. Browsing is a great way to “try” many different selections. It’s a little bit like a buffet where you get to try many different dishes.
From the earliest markings of our ancestors on cave walls, we have as a species wanted to record and write. Most writing in the early stages was for record-keeping and any form of literary writing came much later. “The oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millenium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC.” In our evolutionary history, we have come so far where writing is concerned. Just think of how all of us bloggers are “writers” in our own way. We too have stories to tell. Our evolutionarly history where writing is concerned is an ongoing process.
We all have many opportunities for reading too. These days, parents are reading to their children at younger and younger ages and there is an abundance of material available. There are books in large size print for those with vision problems and there are books in Braille as well. There is no shortage of reading material and writers and authors abound. We are truly blessed.
Not all of us bloggers will become “authors.” We can enjoy all the books that others have written and they can enrich our lives. We can borrow books or buy books – just as we choose or can afford. Some of us will have big home libraries and some of us will have small ones. We will find that most of our collections, however, will not include many of our own writings. Life is like that. Most of what we know from books or any other source has come handed down. Hope you enjoy this collage!
Life is like a library owned by the author.
In it are a few books which he wrote himself,
but most of them were written for him.
Harry Emerson Fosdick