And as I was reading the words, I had an “out of text” experience. I realized (and I’m sure that I can’t be the first one to discover such a thing — this was just the first time that I discovered it) that the words on the page were just relational to each other. They only made sense within the con-text created by the other words of the text. And, as I already noted, the context of the book wasn’t particularly compelling.

In perspective, I suppose that the same point is true to some degree of all texts (including this one). But it seemed much clearer with regard to the piece of fiction I was working on at the time. And since then, I’ve found myself reading things like Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and Its Discontents, Barabasi’s Linked, and Krishnamurti’s Total Freedom.

FWIW, I’d like to understand that odd experience better, so if there are materials that illuminate such matters, I’d be happy to get recommendations.

But occasionally, when the healthy melancholy threatens to veer off into cynicism or despair, I need something hilarious to get me laughing out loud. At these moments, I take down one of the following from my bookshelf:

Bouvard et Pecuchet, The Good Soldier Svejk, Tartuffe, Henry IV, pt.1, Catch-22, Don Quixote, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Augie March, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Dog of the South, The Little Demon, Le Roman de Renart, Gargantua, and In Praise of Folly

I agree with those that have said they read to “escape,� and I admit that this is often my motivation as well.

Other times, though, I think I read not to escape, but to remember.
So many fiction pieces include scenes, lines, or moments that seem to capture so perfectly a specific feeling to experience that I’ve had in my own life.

On a related note, certain books are linked to significant events in my life just because I happened to be reading that book when the event occurred.
For example, I was reading A Prayer for Owen Meany this summer when my father was in the final weeks of his illness. I’ll forever remember reading that book while curled up on the hospital bed next to my dad. It’s a pretty moving and powerful story on ti’s own, but the fact that it’s linked in my memory with my father’s death, gives it more meaning to me. When I taught English, I had some really special moments teaching Toni Morrisson’s The Bluest Eye. So, for me, that book is always an emotional link to my “teaching years� and that phase of my life.

Why don’t more young mom’s read??
Because we’re exhausted! And I think if you don’t come to enjoy reading as leisure early on, it just feels like more work, while watching Oprah is passive.

So, which book will be awarded that coveted spot in my Thanksgiving suitcase?
I’m not sure. I’ve been reading Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 recently, but I’m really not that into it. Not sure if it’s travel-worthy.
I am seriously considering buying the latest David Sedaris book, the title has something about Corduroy Pants. It’ complete escapism, but I deserve it. So, I think it’s be David Sedaris. . .unless anyone has any suggestions to convince me otherwise.

You may like Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. They are the finest mainstream super-hero comic books yet written. Bendis’ Ultimate Spiderman is outstanding also, as are (to a lesser degree) his Ultimate Fantastic Four and Daredevil (as is just about anything by Bendis, especially his less mainstream stuff like Torso or Powers).

On the other hand, please note that a modern prophet has instructed all of you to learn German. Will you not heed the voice of warning?

Other than that, like Sarah, I love the stories, and not in moderation. I will devour a great story. My husband sighs in despair when I bring home a new Orson Scott Card title. It means I will be pretty much useless and cranky for a day or two as everything else becomes a nuisance. I’m not proud of this …

I also appreciate the chance to use fiction to address some challenging questions in unexpected ways. I was describing to my husband the other night a book called _Children of God_ by Mary Doria Russell, and its sequel, _The Sparrow_. They are a little Card-esque, but from a Catholic POV and more jarring in some ways than all the Card I’ve read. They address what it entails to spread the gospel to a foreign culture, what it means to endure adversity and keep believing. Other topics, too. I recommend them if you don’t mind getting jarred.

I identify a lot with an ancestor of mine who owned a flock of sheep as the main means of support for his family. He loved to go out with the sheep into the Wyoming grasslands, taking a book with him, letting the sheep wander as he occupied himself in a world of words and stories. His family never prospered financially until he was sent on a mission and his wife took over the business. I always think, there’s a man who was born too soon. In today’s American West, he coulda been a professor. ;o)

President Hinckley said about his wife “Your voracious appetite for reading and your relentless pursuit of knowledge have kept you alert and refreshing throughout a long and fruitful life.”

That is what I want someone to say about me when I am 90. This is why we should read.

Maybe I’ll start telling young mothers to read these quotes when they ask me how I have time to read.

What?! No Frodo? No Peter Pan or Mr. Toad? No Huck Finn or Atticus Finch?

These timeless characters seem to have a life of their own and are enshrined in our mental museums as sacred artifacts. Why? I’m not sure, but I think it may because we want them to “live” in us. We ache for them almost as for the loss of loved ones and resurrect them from fiction into reality by allowing them to affect who we are, and those that affect us more deeply are are more beloved.