When you select peaches or strawberries or asparagus for your dining table, do you linger and study the produce? Are you picky? Do you look for the freshest pieces which invite you to smell and taste them? Do you look for just the right size of asparagus with closed tips, indicating freshness? Do you look for good color and plumpness in your peaches? Do you only choose strawberries completely red and fragrant?
I do.
I choose books with the same care and pickiness. Is the author one I trust based on experience, recommendation, or reviews? Is the topic one which interests me? Is the writing beautiful, or if not that sort of book, is the writing clear, tight, fresh?
When the perfect book comes along, I invite friends and family to join me in reading it in a book club forum, sometimes in person, sometimes in real-time online.
Literary camaraderie. The best sort of experience.
Enlivening.
Humorous.
Educational.
Pacing ourselves we tackle a portion at a time. We don't rush, but we don't dawdle either. Before we know it our session comes to a natural close. We are ready to rest. Exhilarated energy is expended through our words and sharing. We exhaust ourselves in wonderment, the topic dictating the emotion. Always worthwhile.
Before we know it, the last chapter plays itself out, the back cover folds shut. Sadness meets the final page, for the book has become a teacher, a friend who will be missed. Always, though, there is another in the wings, humming on the shelf, waiting for its turn to be thumbed through, read, and eagerly digested.
Life is rich when we select our strawberries and books with the same care in which we choose our friends.
This post is dedicated to all my book club bibliophiles, you know who are. I cherish our literary adventures together!
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