Jon Davis - head shot

Ode to books

I often wonder what I would do without my friends, books. Reading, for me, has always been a portal to other lands. Lands rich in knowledge, wisdom, and magic. As a little girl, I was sitting beside Mary in her secret garden, on the windy moors of England. I was standing among the turbaned-head crowds in Arabia as the Prince's horse raced. And of course I knew the lands of Narnia and Middle-Earth as if I were an inhabitant.

I have recently read Elliot's Middlemarch (english period literature will always be my favourite), I wept at Dorothea's sacrifice. I also wept, recently, when the three wisemen from foreign lands met under a single star ancient eons ago in Wallace's Ben Hur. I have read Les Miserables several times in English, and vow to read it in it's native french one day, though I don't think I'll ever graduate to reading Tolstoy or Dostoevski in Russian. I have not yet read War and Peace, but The Brothers Karamazov moved me profoundly. How else would we travel to ancient lands, through long dormant revolutions, and even to secret lands, if not for books?

Dicken's England, Burnett's India, Alice Walker's Philadelphia during the Civil Rights movement, and of course Montgomery's Canada have all contributed to making me a concientious person.

In my ever growing pile of " to read" I have Emily Dikinson's poems, Anais Nin, and Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'. I've not yet read through Virginia Wolfe, but I'm a new fan of Jane Urqhart, especially her short stories. and of course there is the Bible, in my humble opinion , the greatest piece of literature of rage, love, and spirit , ever written, which moves me to tears every second time I open its pages.

Well, this entry could go on forever, so I'll just wind up by saying " I love books!!"

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