As much as I love essays, I seem to get distracted and wrapped up too much in books. I decided in July I would make a concentrated effort to read essays–in part to finish the essay challenge (I’m actually completing a challenge), in part to develop a habit of reading essays, and in part because I just seem to do better if I set a specific goal. The full list for the month is on the essay page, but here are a few thoughts:
I Love Anne Fadiman
I spent a good portion of my essay reading reveling in Ex Libris. If you love books and you haven’t read her volume of essays on reading and books, buy it right now and read it. Anne’s parents raised her in a reading household and, as a mother who is trying to do the same with her children, it’s reassuring to see that she loved it. One essay describes how her family loved to discover long, difficult words. In our family, my husband collects words all year long (most from the word-a-day service from dictionary.com), writes them on 3×5 cards and then during meals on our big family vacation (because three meals a day, every day, for two weeks is too much family conversation for teenagers) he quizzes all of us. Kyle tries to find meanings from his Latin classes, I tend to know the word or just make up a definition, and Kelsey is highly motivated by the dime the kids get for every correct definition.
For our upcoming vacation, I’m going to copy “Never Do That To A Book” and read it over a leisurely dinner. We are a family of doing everything to a book. We stick things in them, we prop them open, I write all over mine, we use them as door stops (two summers ago we used The World is Flat, last year War and Peace, and I’ve been trying to use the volume of law review journals that Keith edited 20 years ago this summer, but he keeps putting that hefty book away), our books are under the car seats and stuck willy nilly through out the house. My kids will be astonished to hear that our treatment of books, something we love, would offend some people.
Her “You Are There” essay rang true for me. Whenever I travel, I look for books about where I’m going (Idlewild Books is a great resource). My stack for Read the rest of this entry »
Claire
Kim
