An Invitation Accepted

 Economist John Maynard Keyes once offered up this tidbit of advice on how to make one's way through a bookstore: 

"A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshop, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon entertainment."

This reminded me quite a bit of my own method of exploring the library that I shared in my last post, Exploring the Universe (and a little reading list); although I do frequently go into the library intent on securing a particular book or anything written by a particular author, I most frequently wander around in that near dream-like state, allowing the books to speak to me, vie for my attention, ask me to take them home.

These books spoke, they invited, and I listened, I accepted.

Last week I finished Memories Last Breath and Curious, both of which are mentioned in the previous post. Additionally I read:

A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer: Curiosity enriches our lives, stimulates us, opens up opportunities for us; Brian Grazer and I are in agreement on these points. Within this book, he expounds on the ways in which curiosity has enriched his life. He highlights his "curiosity conversations" which involve him deliberately seeking out people he is curious and simply asking questions, having a conversation. This is a process that I have never formalized but is what I attempt to do with folks that I interact with.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson: See, I do actually get some fiction read. This is a fictional autobiography of Reverend John Ames who resides in a small, rather isolated town, Gilead, Iowa. The date established at the beginning of the book is 1956 and, Ames explains that he is writing an account of his life for his seven-year old son who will likely have few memories of him upon his passing. It is delightful. It is thought provoking. Here are some quotes gleaned from within its pages that highlight the books ability to provoke and delight simultaneously.

"Love is holy because it is like grace - the worthiness of its object is never really what matters."

"Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was."

"These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice."

"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient."

"Well, but you two are dancing in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water."

Sublime.

And the reading continues. I am presently working on...

American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work  by Susan Cheever

The Intellectual Lives of Children  by Susan Engel

The Book of Beautiful Questions  by Warren Berger

Natural Curiosity: Educating and Nurturing Our Children at Home  by Lisa Carne

The Casual Vacancy by  J.K. Rowling