Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are
We study and read books not just to gain knowledge and ideas from other people, but to feed our mind and expand our own experience and feeling.
We learn and we exercise our creative muscle. We slow down and get absorbed by the words in front of us. Each passage becomes a point of departure, a stepping stone or catalyst for growth and wonder.
Street Art by Julien Malland a.k.a Seth Globepainter
Fiction can take us to places we've never been. It can offer us new points of reference, spark new ideas, serve up refreshing new approaches to life from angles we've never imagined.
Nonfiction breathes history and humanity into our life. It exposes us to the greatest challenges mankind has ever faced and lessons learned, from personal growth, to medical breakthroughs; from the cellular level to the solar system.
M.C Escher: Still Life and Street
"Books are the way that the dead communicate with us. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, the way that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told." ~ Neil Gaiman
The greatest minds have always been inspired by good books.
Leopold Infeld, who worked with Einstein, wrote in his autobiography The Quest about how much Einstein loved Cervantes's classic tale of the chivalrous knight Don Quixote:
"Einstein lay in bed without shirt or pajamas, with Don Quixote on his night table. It is the book which he enjoys most and likes to read for relaxation…"
Einstein: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
Hermann Hesse: "Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest… Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, there is no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space, in a single house or a single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books."
James Baldwin: "reading is a way to change our destiny."
Carl Sagan: "A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."
Mark Twain: "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."
Coach John Wooden: "Drink deeply from good books..."
Og Mandino, among the greatest inspirational authors of all time, expresses his brush with suicide and his discovery of spiritual nourishment in the works of Aristotle, Emerson, Ben Franklin, and Plato, in his book, A Better Way to Live.
Og Mandino's life changed when he wandered into a library and found his lifeline in books. Your life can change too, for the better, by reading good books.
Maurice Sendak
Charles Bukowski spent a lot of time in libraries, especially when he was out of cheap wine and ducking his landlady looking for back rent money. It was in a library where Bukowski discovered John Fante on the shelf. "Then like a man who had found gold in the city dump," said Bukowski, "I carried the book to a table... The book was Ask the Dust. [Fante] was to be a lifetime influence on my writing." (From the introduction to Ask the Dust.)
Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, CA
The list is endless. Pick any name from the past or present and do a quick google search on the books which inspired your heroes and you can immediately fill your library shelves with new titles and fill your mind with the same content of encouragement, inspiration, insights and hope your heroes found in these same books.
Words can command any effect.
Words can swing us from tree to tree...
Place us in the cockpit of a private jet under a fierce sky...
Lift us over billowing clouds...
Slam us against the rocks...
And words can help us find our calm.
To not read would be a tragedy, especially if you have the ability to read. It would be like owning a plane, having a pilot's license, but not wanting to fly.
Libraries exist to provide rich resources of knowledge and inspiration for the thirsty and possibly wayward mind. Websites exist to do the same, such as: https://oceanofpdf.com/ and https://archive.org/.
Build your own library. Get inspired. Feed your mind. Encourage your children and others to read.
Read. And keep reading. And maybe write and encourage others with the magic of your words.
***
I’m Michael Kennedy, Olympic Valley, CA resident, married to Nicola Kennedy (in photo above). I’m a reader, writer, photographer and property caretaker. I just want to say thanks for your attention - I appreciate it in such a noisy world. If you enjoyed it, please share with others. It means a lot to me and it helps others see the story.
If you're interested in owning any photos in my gallery: click here, call or text me at 530.608.9150 with inquiries. My email: michael.kennedy999@gmail.com.
Stunning layout!!!