Thursday Thoughts...

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” 

Anne Lamott

Two weeks in a row - Ms Lamott is the source of my quotes! Unintended, but she is the sort of woman who could provide food for thought each and every day of the week I expect.

And so to books and what they can do.

So true they decrease our sense of isolation. So true that they deepen and widen and expand our sense of life. So true that they can make us shake our heads at the exactness of their prose and their truths.

And how delightful to think about how they can restore our buoyancy; how they can change our hearts and our spirits.

So true.

It's funny to think of ALL the things that books can do, and on so many levels. I have recently read Charlotte Woods' "The Natural Way of Things" and it was hard. It was so hard, but it demanded to be read. It demanded that we think about the multi-layered stories within it and what they mean for this country. It demanded that it be read and discussed and thought about in ways I'd never thought before.

I wasn't buoyed by it, but I was changed by it and challenged by it.

A good book can do so many things...

The cover of this book is much more beautiful than this - but  I had to photograph it quickly in bad light sorry - this is what it looks like from the interweb... (but too small to show at my preferred size). Explanations over.