Hello and welcome to this, day seven, book five and my final day of my week long, daily blogging challenge. It’s been so great having you along for what was an important self- imposed writing challenge for me. Thank you!
You see, I have always written since I was a child. It, like reading, has been a wonderful escape for me from a world I often find confusing and difficult to navigate. I have known for a long time that I don’t feel good if it’s been too long since I’ve written last, much like if I fall out of my walking in nature groove. Yet, until I did this challenge I didn’t have a true experiential knowledge of just how much better I feel when I am writing often, even daily.
Like nature walks, reading, meditation and yoga, writing is of utmost importance to my well being. It will take me a while to figure out what exactly about this week worked so well but I will give it the space it needs. I do write almost daily in some form or another, but this week involved making a real commitment to me and the eking out the evening space from my family for it to happen in the midst of our very busy lives. So yay, thanks everyone. This has been a really, really beneficial personal exercise for me and I am grateful.
Today’s book up for discussion is a book my kids so generously special ordered for me for Christmas 2018. They knew I was really excited when I saw that this book, brilliantly entitled A Velocity of Being, was being published. One of the editors, Maria Popova, Bulgarian born, Brooklyn, New York resident, writes my fave (and award winning) literary blog called Brain Pickings and this book was a long and devoted labour of love for her over many years. (read about the magical way the book came into being in Maria’s introduction.)
It is comprised of a collection of letters written by 121 carefully chosen, wildly interesting, and very successful people from all walks of life about what reading has meant to them in their lives. The letters are each paired with an illustration done by an artist similarly chosen for their artistic talents and whose art for the book reflects the artist’s interpretation of the content of the written letter they’ve been paired with. It is so fun just looking at the way each artist brings to life the author’s words and imagining what I might have written and/ or how I might have created the art.
Considering my own mother’s desperate need for reading material in her childhood in rural PEI, and how globally not alone she was in that need, and knowing how reading provides such an immeasurably wonderful avenue to worlds beyond our own imaginings, it is heartwarming to find a book like this, written especially for young readers. It is also wonderful to come to the realization that the writers in this book all have a common factor with the reader. Really, it is the greatest common factor beyond our common humanity, and it is this magnificent love affair with books, and the comfort, the inspiration, the solace and community they provide readers of all ages.
Knowing how valued and important books are to my family and I, it isn’t much of a stretch to think I might enjoy a book of letters to young readers. In fact, it is no stretch at all-- I positively adore this book!
I must admit though, that I feel a little guilty reviewing this book before I have read every letter. After initially devouring the first part of the book upon first receiving it, I soon realized that the only way to make it last would be to take a page out of my youngest daughter’s book, and savour it like a piece of good chocolate, portioned out to make it last. So even though I have yet to finish the whole book, here I am writing about it. But this should just speak to how very, very good the book is.
Another sign of just how fantastic it is, is that it is inspiring me to gather people together for read aloud’s of the letters, and I am imagining work-shopping it my sister’s elementary school class. Or maybe bringing in it to seniors to get them thinking and writing about what books and reading have meant to them in their lives. So very many possibilities! As you can see, I am inspired and that, to me, is also a sign of a very good piece of creative expression.
I just know that I will keep this book forever simply because it feels like I am catching up with an old friend each time I open its pages. The whole of it is something that will be revisited over tea, many times, by everyone in the house.
Happy reading!
Jill
And for all the dear mother's (including my own) reading this on Sun May 12th--Happy Mother's Day!