Books, books and more books.
An afternoon sun to warm my body, and a good book to nurture my soul. That’s heaven.
Ah, the luxury to curl up with a book and not feel guilty or worry about the long list of “to-do’s.” At this stage of my life, reading takes a priority and is part of my day — usually about an hour. Not at one setting, mind you. Usually it’s half an hour after lunch. In the wintertime, if it’s sunny, I sit in my south-facing dining room with the afternoon sun warming by body and a good book nurturing my soul. That’s heaven. On a warm summer afternoon, I’ll head to the north-facing patio with a cool breeze and an even cooler book to make my day.
Usually I have three books going at one time: fiction, nonfiction and what I would loosely categorize as self-help. As I start 2020, here’s by current list:
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. Set on a Virginia plantation in the late 19th century, it chronicles the life of a young, orphaned white girl placed in the care of one of the black slaves who just happens to be the master’s illegitimate daughter. This is our book club’s choice for the month, so I’m looking forward to the discussion. In another post I’ll talk about my beloved book club and why I think everyone should belong to one.
My nonfiction choice is Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans which was given to me by my oldest daughter. We are a Catholic family, but my daughter, like so many her age, has left the church. I am still church-going but admit to getting frustrated with my faith. Hence, I search for some answers. Ms. Evans was a gifted, insightful author. I say was because, unfortunately, this young mother of two died suddenly from complications of the flu. Her wisdom will be missed.
Self-help reading comes by way of The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Judith Cameron. On this path she promotes a 12-week journey with a pivotal feature the process of writing what she calls morning pages. That is three pages of hand-written, stream-of consciousness writing. I’ll let you know how it goes.
As if that weren’t enough, I continue to slog through the Outlander series. Author Diana Gabaldon is a prolific writer, and each of the eight-plus books in the series is over a thousand pages. I’m on number five. The escapades of Jamie and Claire keep me entertained, and for an extra dose, I tune into the series on Netflix.
“Fill your house with stacks of books; all the crannies and all the nooks.” Dr. Seuss