Thursday, February 26, 2009

A Life of Reading

One of my favorite quotations is C.S. Lewis' "we read to know we are not alone." I have been thinking lately about how our reading life is colored by the stage of life we are in.

I had a friend once who told me that she thought it was a waste of time to ever re-read a book. I couldn't disagree more. I read MADAME BOVARY when I was a young teenager. I had no experience with love, relationships, marriage, motherhood. Although I enjoyed the book, many of the subtleties were lost on me. As an adult, I reread the book and discovered so many nuances and meanings that I had previously missed because I couldn't understand them at that point in my life. As we age and mature, we read through different lenses. Although I could be moved by stories about motherhood before, I experience those stories in a completely different way now that I am actually a mother. While I puzzled over tales of marriage and its joys and difficulties before, they are now brought into completely new light now that I am a wife.

This is one of the things I love about reading. You can return to a book years later and experience it in a completely different and new way due to your life experiences.

Currently on deck:
TINKERS by Paul Harding
GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman

Review coming soon!

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