I went to the bookstore today (well, yesterday, if you want to be so technical about it). It was marvelous. I love being around books. So many books... Each that tells its own story, none exactly alike... I have trouble believing the same is absolutely true for all snowflakes.
I just finished reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was quite stunning. The pictures are beautiful, I think, and it's a good story. I really loved how Hugo thought of every machine being built for a purpose, and how the world is really just one big machine, and since every machine has a purpose, he must have a purpose too somehow... There are things that one can communicate on paper that are actually quite hard to communicate with pure speech. The pictures go right along with the story too. 525 pages in 1 hour 15 minutes. I trust that since I couldn't put it down even to go to bed, as I should be there now, it is worth the short amount of time.
Another good book is The Little Prince. It was a while ago that I read it, I believe the last time I was at the dentist. It was another sort of book that makes you think...
"Thinking books" must very well be the best books out there. If a story can't make you think of something outside of the book, then I don't believe that it is a very great book, rather that it is for a moment rather than for a lifetime. I don't think that anyone should take all of the time to write all of those words if it only ends up being read for one moment and forgotten the next. Words that have been precious enough to someone for them to want them shared should have that amount of value for every mouth that tells it, and for every ear that listens.
"The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it." James Bryce
"A book is like a garden carried in the pocket." Chinese Proverb
"A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy." Edward P. Morgan
"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own." William Hazlitt
"The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television." Andrew Ross
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life.'" Helen Exley
"If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions." Author Unknown
"Books are the glass of council to dress ourselves by." Bulstrode Whitlock
"'Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are' is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread." François Mauriac
"I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget." William Lyon Phelps
"A good book has no ending." R.D. Cumming
I'm actually working with the World Wide Book Drive to collect books to give to communities who can't afford them. (Or recycle, if the book isn't in good quality, they can recycle it.) I think it's cool, the e-mails they send me have in the signature that quote by Helen Exley. I thought that was a cool quote. Books are awesome!
ReplyDelete