Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or disporting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee.
In retrospect, my coffee has been the works of Charles Dickens. Admittedly, there’s something a little annoying about all those plucky underprivileged kids and the aptly named agents of villainy. But Ive come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.
Yes…and amen!
This…the fact that no matter how bad things are someone has written a story to take me away from it all…or remind me of better days…or tell of a tragedy worse than mine…or make me laugh…or cry…or laugh while crying…
THIS is why I read. And why I can’t comprehend life without books on the shelves. Books stacked by the wall. Books in every drawer. A book in my purse. A book on my desk at work. A book in the car. And a book on the doorstep followed by a book on it’s way (thank you Amazon and Powells!)
When people say “What do you do for fun?” and I say “Read.” The look on their face in response tells me everything I need to know about how they feel about books. Everything.