Finished reading: Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-Reum 📚

This is a quick read: 53 short meditations on reading. If you are an avid reader, you will not find much new here, but it’s still nice to read about reading and how a fellow avid reader feels about books. This one gave me some new book ideas and made me think about going deeper with my reading.

Hwang reads a lot. Like, as many books in a month as I do in a year. It almost gave me permission, or gave me solace, in knowing that it’s ok to read more or as much as you can. Funny that I need that, but I guess I did. I do have a to-read pile that is growing every month, and I truly want to read them all, and the only way that will happen is to read more.

I love books, and clearly I like reading about reading books. In my life, I don’t have any friends who are avid readers, so it’s powerful for me to read about someone who is and how they approach books. I wish more power readers would post more about how and why they read, and the importance of reading in their lives. Reading books by any standard you see online is regressing, and we need to reverse that trend. At the very least, children need exposure to lots of books and the power and joy of reading.

Here’s to reading!

I read every day. Because I’m bored, because I crave a story, because I feel a little empty. I read to understand what my friends are going through, to breathe some hope into life. But most importantly, I read because I love it. Every day I read, and I’ll keep reading.

Sometimes a single sentence is more powerful than a whole book.

Jean Grenier, in La vie quotidienne, says that books are like a guide in life. Books are friends we make along life’s journey. And as the French political philosopher Charles de Montesquieu says, ‘I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.’ I want to remember the book that has healed me today.