A Tale of Two Books

 

This is not a crazy tale - just a little tale of finding two books in my town whilst perusing used books and what came of them next. It's a typical summer day. Intense heat from the sun starts early, as soon as it's above the horizon. Long days melt into the repetitive nature as it cascades over many months. Occasionally I venture out - daring to defeat the heat with a/c in the car and dashing into a building - preferably one that holds books in it. Recently I took such ventures and was rewarded. The best thing about used bookstores is that you will never be able to predict what you can find, and sometime you are met with some amazing treasures.

Oxford, by James Morris was sitting there on the shelf waiting for me. The name of Oxford of course caught my eye, in the history section, which I might not always peruse in great detail. This time I did, and I pulled this nice hardback off the shelf. It's a Faber book, published in 1965. Several sections of black & white photos accompany the book. I barely had to flip through anymore, it was coming home with me. 

The last few days have been my Oxford days. And let me say, they have been pure enjoyment whilst reading this book. I may not agree with every observation he wrote, but Morris was such fun. He covered historical aspects of Oxford, the weather, the atmosphere, his observations (of course from the perspective of 1965 or so), and it was all so fascinating. Perhaps because it's my favourite city I have more interest in the general history, but as an added bonus, every building and street he walked by, visited and discussed I was familiar with. Which meant that I could picture where he was talking about and learn something about it I might not have known.

The old photos are so fun to see, with the reminder of how little has changed in central Oxford, other than the modern cars, more bicycles and buses, and thankfully, better facilities in the buildings that were not always there, even in the 1960s. But for centuries this spired city has looked timeless. 

The Child From the Sea, by Elizabeth Goudge was sitting forlornly at the bottom shelf at the end of the $0.50 special section, almost too easy to gloss over and miss. But something caught my eye. The name Goudge is not one that I see often. This was a book I haven't read yet, and it was in my shopping cart online for  along time, then I simply saved it for future and forgot to ever order it. What a delight to add another Goudge book to my library, and this one I am just cracking open - fresh and in great condition from 1970. It's historical fiction written before the genre of historical fiction took a very popular turn in recent years, tracing back to the English Civil war and the (secret) wife (Lucy) of soon to be Charles II.

The tale of these two books ends happily. For, one book has been read and now joins a great host of books hanging out on my tall shelves, whilst the other book is in my reading stack, getting to be opened and read as a book should be. They are very happy and content. 

I feel it in the Air

 

"Ah!" said Gandalf. "That is a very long story. The beginnings lie back in the Black Years, which only the lore-masters now remember. If I were to tell you al that tale, we should still be sitting here when Spring had passed into Winter."

- The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

Can you feel it in the air? A slight change, a shift in the air. I awoke this morning and the air smelled different and graced us with temperatures at least 5 degrees cooler. Hints of a coming change of season, even if well in advance. The air smelled different. I might be keenly sensitive to it, with my longing for the colder months, holding the sense of adventure and inspiration. To me, the end of summer grants that presence of newness (such as a year back to school and all the excitement of the fresh pencils and notebooks, ah, always did that thrill me) of what is to come. A change of season and new journey at hand.

Can you tell I've been watching The Lord of the Rings movies? It's been ages since I watched them, and I am also going to re-read the books next. The movies do a good job of capturing the air of the books, the atmosphere of endings and beginnings. I am currently re-reading The Silmarillion which includes the beginnings of Middle-earth. It is truly the long tale that can be told of the history of creation and the first and second ages of Middle-earth before the tales of Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Legolas, and crew begin. It holds the history of beginning and endings, long tales of old that may have been shrouded in mist, but were not quite forgotten.

Perhaps because school begins in the Autumn (or very end of the Summer) that I feel this awakening and excitement in the air. Something fresh to shake off the idles of the Summer when it's too hot to move around or do much. One stays lounging in the shade to avoid the intensity of weather. But when the leaves start to rustle and fall of the branches, we are also rustled, awakening from the depths of somewhere this readiness for adventure. To move and be moved. 

It would be wise for us to heed the advice of Gandalf, though, as we set out (or plan to set out) on another adventure. It might not be the long road we are ready for, but we are at least ready for the next step.

"No indeed!" said Frodo. "But in the meantime what course am I to take?"
"Toward danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight," answered the wizard.

- The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

A Glimpse Only, at Brideshead

 

It is a cosy morning, replete with soft lighting subdued with some early clouds and calm air. Dew is quietly diffused into the air creating a humidity heavy and showcasing the depths of summer. Rain fell early yesterday but not in the evening, so the morning feels thirsty and as the sun parts the clouds the landscape will seek refreshment by the afternoon.

I reach for my book, currently reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Re-reading it, in fact, with a new appreciation for the beauty, nostalgia, and journey to redemption of this book. It's more than 11 years since I read it. I know this because I found a plane ticket stub stuck in the back page/cover of the book, for my flight to IN for training in my new job (still my employer today!) in March 2013. I know I did not fully appreciate this book back then. I was not nearly as deep or attentive of a reader back then to understand the nuances of this novel. 

This book is deeply nostalgic, set between the two world wars, mostly taking place in Oxford and London, setting us up from the very beginning with the mature Charles Ryder falling upon an estate whilst camping with his troops in the countryside, and suddenly when he hears the name of the estate  "Brideshead":

...an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long-forgotten sounds - for he had spoken a name that was so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight.

 And there follows this journey back to Charles's young college life at Oxford, still a city in "aquatint" in those early lightweight days before deep trials came through his associations with the Marchmain, an English aristocratic, family. Through the years of some painful growth he encounters episodes of grace and conversion, he encounters the culture shifting and faces the ultimate decisions of choosing faith over the depravity of a sinful life. 

The writing is exquisite in this book. From reading some of Evelyn's biography, he must have drawn from some of his own youthful Oxford experiences for the story of Charles, and the lovable, yet facing inner demons, character of Sebastian. This kind of book, I feel, could not be written today with such beautiful and harrowing encounters of life in between the world wars, unless someone had lived through such a time. One cannot imagine exactly how the culture shifting (deep growing secularism and dismissal of Catholics until a later time) would have impacted someone living in that time, facing the secular and religious clashes unless one had seen that unfold. What we see now is different, naturally, our world is different, so getting a glimpse of this life in the 1920's, 1930's is thought provoking and insightful. How is it different from now? Is there more or less freedom? These are questions we can ask as a modern reader.

He led me through a baize door into a dark corridor; I could dimly see a gilt cornice and vaulted plaster above; then, opening a heavy, smooth-swinging mahogany door, he led me into a darkened hall. Light streamed through he cracks in the shutters. Sebastian unbarred one, and folded it back; the mellow afternoon sun flooded in, over the bare floor, the vast, twin fireplaces of sculptured marble, the coved ceiling frescoed with classic deities and heroes, the gilt mirrors and scagliola pilasters, the islands of sheeted furniture. It was a glimpse only, such as might be had from the top of an omnibus into a lighted ballroom; then Sebastian quickly shut out the sun. "You see," he said; "it's like this."

This is what occurs through the book, of Charles telling his story, looking back. There arises a glimpse here and there, of something more, something trying to break into his life as he encounters the Marchmain family and their Catholic faith, for years he resists these glimpses and pushes them off, but when events take a turn, even if still not wanting to be folded in for the deep reasons, he kneels and prays. If motivation is at first in the direction of Julia, he begins to understand it is actually for something much deeper and more fulfilling, it is true belief. 

Things may not end in the worldly happy sense, and yet, the turning toward God, for both Julia and Charles, is the best of all possible endings, with their gazes directed toward God as their ultimate source of all they need. Leaving their own desires for God's.

I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

Down the Turl of Ideas

 

Cloudy Grey Afternoon Musing -- 

When do ideas come to you? When do you capture ideas and how? Is there quiet, thinking time a certain time of day? Is there a place, a time, a method? Do you thrive on routine or on flexibility? 

Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!

(Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Or, is it from your memory? Learning is a lifelong process and often something we learn about, read about, or experience comes back to us via memory. Either in an "ah ha" moment or a gentle reflection that reveals something. 

Fleeting like a fully bloomed flower, ideas tend to burst forth with wonder and delight, but if you don't capture it in some way, it fades and droops, and might be hard to retrieve again. This is a big reason why I journal and everyday let out some thoughts, even if it's not anything earth-shattering. 

I coyly inserted a little quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley as he was known for his big (atheist) ideas that got him expelled from Oxford, just down High Street, in fact, at University College. Despite his aversion to Christianity, his poetry is rather brilliant and not without lots of Christian imagery and language.

Turl Street in Oxford is one of my favourite streets. It connects Broad Street and High Street, so it a very handy path, but also is a central smaller street that is a source of many branches of paths diverging from it. It not only offers the cut-through to High Street from Broad Street, but along the way, it also provide a branch directly to to the Radcliffe Camera (Brasenose Lane) and then the other direction toward Cornmarket via Ship Street or Market Street. There are great shops along Turl, like Oxfam bookshop, The Missing Bean coffee shop, and some of the loveliest colleges (Exeter, Jesus, Lincoln). One of my favourite restaurants used to be there (a victim of Covid time). A spire can be seen at the end where High Street greets it (it used to be a church, now the Lincoln College Library). And a huge Horse Chestnut tree stands on the corner of Turl and Ship Streets behind the Jesus College wall, branching well above and over it to provide shadows and beautiful greenery to anyone along Turl Street.

Turl Street can be really busy sometimes,  it can get congested with delivery trucks and bikes, students, tour groups, and construction/restoration projects. The moments when I can capture it in a stillness is fleeting, and I try to embrace it almost by instinct whenever I turn onto Turl Street. I find that I reach for my phone to see if I will be able to snap a photo of the delightful street. The way the road curves ever so slightly as it approaches High Street is visually appealing, with the lines of shops on the right and Lincoln College on the left.

So when I think of ideas, I think of Turl Street as the guide - the street that leads to all kinds of directional paths branching off. It's one small road with 5 different possibilities. It's this visual and real life exhibit of how one idea has the ability to branch off into many ideas depending on where we take it. As humans, we have these amazing capabilities to plan, strategize, make choices, learn, adapt, change our mind, re-design. It's with a sense of appreciation and wonder I think of ideas and how we use them as the catapult into some exciting. 

Desktop Domain

 

Before my thoughts, surveying
Time's evidences old,
All deeds with comfort weighing
That thy handwriting hold.

-from Psalm 143 (The Sidney Psalter)

It can be a bit dreamy, imaginative, and reflective here at my desktop domain. It's a place I love coming to in the early hours of the morning, sometimes before the sun is peaking high enough to cast light through the window. Each morning this is my view. It is the spot where my journaling pages set my mornings in the right direction with reflection and prayer. With a cup of coffee within ready reach of course. I read a chapter in the Bible, currently reading through the Gospel according to Matthew. Next my current philosophy book is open for as many pages reading I can squeeze into my time (getting close to finishing Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard). If I do have a time restraint, I will set my Minee timer for a visual representation of how much time I have.

Here is where I can let my thoughts stretch out. In my mind and onto pages. Window to my right, bookshelves to my left. An inspiring little location in my small home. I am so thankful for this little space. To have a pleasant space to sit with my journal and open up to the next blank page is a gift.

Sometimes I will jot out a story idea, with plot and characters. Sometimes I will write about an experience or something I have learned from a day or experience, which tends to provoke deeper thinking of things to work on or grow from, which then leads to prayer. Onto the blank pages often appear scribbles of prayers, because I know I need it and the source of everything I need is at the other end of that wordy jumbled prayer sentence. Thank you, Lord.

Take some slow moments for deep thoughts, musing, calm. Take a breath. Welcome a new day and all that it will bring.

Nor let thy face be hidden
From one who may compare
With them whose death hath bidden
Adieu to life and care.
My hope, let mercy's morrow
Soon chase my night of sorrow.

-from Psalm 143 (The Sidney Psalter)

Choosing Either/Or

 

It is now sufficiently clear that reflective love constantly consumes itself and stops quite arbitrarily now here, now there; it is clear that it points beyond itself to something higher, but the question is whether the higher cannot straightaway combine with first love. Now, this higher something is the religious, where rational reflection ends, and just as for God everything is possible, so neither for the religious individual is anything impossible.

- Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard

Many philosophers and thinkers have asked the toughest question in created ways. Questions such as why are we here? What is our purpose? To these questions we have all perhaps tossed out our own answers, or tossed out the questions altogether. Too difficult to answer. Just go on living how we choose. Yet, everything we choose is a direction either toward ourselves (our own desires) or toward something bigger (the ethical and good).

I am reading Søren Kierkegaard's Either/Or, a not-so-usual book of two parts, written by pseudonyms. Part I is from the point of view of the aesthetic/hedonistic/sensual lifestyle. Everything is subjective and according to what he feels and experiences. He praises idleness and pleasure. Part II is from the opposing viewpoint. Judge Vilhelm taking stances against these lifestyle choices and voices his case from the side of ethics and accepting responsibility. Kierkegaard forces his readers to decide for themselves which viewpoint either that, or that, as the most life-affirming. Kierkegaard might conclude that we (most of us) find ourselves on the side of the aesthete in Part I.

For the aesthete asks what we all might ask, "What is the human race? Either the sadness of the tragic, or the profound sorrow and profound joy of religion. Or is that not the peculiarity of everything that emanates from that happy people - a melancholy, a sadness, in its art, in its poetry, in its life, in its joy?"

Just as in life, we are not given answers. The reader must confront such questions and choose their reasons for agreeing with a choice of oneself, or the choice of obliging the familial and social responsibilities. This sub-created conversation between two opposing views allows the reader to engage in a deeper way with these fictional characters as we grapple with the meaning of why we choose a certain way of life.

We choose from an either/or set before us almost everyday, so which side do we find ourselves on?

What is it, then, that I separate in my either/or? Is it good and evil? No, I simply want to bring you to the point where that choice truly requires meaning for you. It is on this that everything hinges. Only when one can get a person to stand at the crossroads in such a way that he has no expedient but to choose, does he choose what is right.

Being a Sub-creator

 

What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out int he Primary World again.

- "On Fairy Stories", J.R.R. Tolkien

I sat at my desk whilst in Oxford, with a view at the window out toward the main quadrangle of Wadham College. It pleased me very much to sit there with a few books and my journal. Naturally, when I am in Oxford I feel the remnant presence of the footsteps of those beloved authors and thinkers - C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Burton. I walk the paths of Christ Church Meadow and admire the knotty, old trees that look like Ents (from Middle-earth). I shop in Blackwells Bookshop imagining Dorothy L. Sayers working there under Basil Blackwell. I pass by the Narnia door and lamp post off Radcliffe Square and imagine C.S. Lewis stomping by a few times a week to meet his brother Warnie for lunch at The Mitre. It is easy for me to see the beauty held in the imagination, from the past, and into my present. I think of how these places not only inspire me now, but inspired centuries of students and professors in various ways. 

I am there. My feet trod along the same streets. I seek to re-visit some of the books by these writers that I love, as if to have another conversation with them whilst walking in their footsteps. I want to know their daily life and routine. Where did they grab a meal and tea? What books were they reading? Did they travel out of town, by train, bicycle, or car? I might make-up a story in my head about a meeting or lunch they might take with someone, as I head down The High for a spot of lunch. I might imagine their wanders through the flowering meadows in the middle of the city. And I imagine them sitting at their desks at home, writing their next book. What inspired them that day as they were out and about?

Tolkien coins the term and ideas around sub-creating. He explains that God is Creator, of everything we know and don't know, see and don't see. He has gifted us with abilities to create as well, through art, music, words, work, business, etc. We are all creating a story to tell. So, we in turn become creators, yet since we are not God, we are sub-creators of a secondary world, underneath the umbrella of the one true God as ultimate Creator. It is under these realms of the creation we explore our talents and gifts by way of sub-creating.

When I first discovered this through Tolkien, I was so inspired. It was a way of explaining and confirming what I had always thought to be so important. To do good with what I have been given. For me that good has always been writing and creating something - whether that is journal entries, poems, stories, or blog posts. But for others, it might be completely different. Yet in the same air of creating 'something' it is sub-creating. It may never be complete in our lifetimes, yet it is not in vain. Our work, our efforts will be perfected in the heavenly kingdom. Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle" is the perfect companion here to illustrate that idea. 

When I sit down at my desk to write wherever I am, I always keep this in mind. This idea of being a sub-creator, for it is a gift from the Creator. Just holding that thought close and near inspires me to do my work of sub-creating, even if it's only a few minutes, or a small thing.  

The Light of the World

 

A visit to Keble College Chapel, Oxford

To see "The Light of the World" by Holman Hunt (1827-1910)

Marvelous pre-Raphaelite painting.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
- Revelation 3.20

Tucked into a small side chapel in the grand Keble College Chapel is the great painting by Holman Hunt, "The Light of the World". Hunt painted two of these, the other original is in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. I have been blessed to be able to see both of the original paintings in person. On this recent trip to Oxford, I wanted to take a little time to visit the one in Keble College.

It was a windy, chilly day in Oxford. We had lunch on Broad Street at a new favourite spot, Theo's Cafe. Then, we took the little walk beyond the Weston Library and by Wadham College and Trinity College. Keble College comes next, which stands across the street from the beautiful Natural History Museum. Keble College stands out amongst colleges as it is both newer and also built in brick, so it has a very different tone. Grand and spacious it is though, and worth a visit. Worth a visit alone for the chapel. 

Entering the chapel by the huge wooded doors the immediate hush greeted us with a calmness and quiet from the gusty winds outside. A few other people were shuffling about the chapel as well. My feet took me straight up the center aisle feeling the immensity of the space, up the steps toward the altar, and to the right through the small door into the side chapel. To spend a little time with "The Light of the World.

The painting absolutely glows. I love the play with light and the dusky early evening light. The lantern light reflects off several other places in the painting showcasing the overgrown vine on the door, allowing the viewer to see that there is no doorknob on the outside of the door. One must open up to Christ - He will not force open the door. But He is always pursuing. He knocks. We have the freedom and choice to open to Him, or not. 

Christ holds a light, but He is also the Light of the world. He tells us to be lights of the world, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (Ch 5.14-16), which has always been my favourite verse:

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

I stayed in the chapel for a little bit. No one else was in there so I took my time. I could have stayed easily for an hour, just sitting there looking at the painting under different angles and light. To sit with my journal and write, and pray. It is a place that holds a quiet meditative closeness to God. A place I will go back to with a very glad heart.

Landscape of the Mind

 

"If I know nothing of my own garret," I thought, "what is there to secure me against my own brain? Can I tell what it is even now generating? - what thought it may present me the next moment, the next month, or a year away? What is at the heart of my brain? What is behind my think? Am I there at all? - Who, what am I?"

- Lilith by George MacDonald

You are in your mind all day. It is an extraordinary thing we have as humans, to be in thought, consideration, musing, pensiveness. Truly amazing, it is, as we can revisit memories and times from the past, all from our perspective. We can dream and sometimes remember dreams that might be realistic or outlandish. This is all both a gift and a challenge that we have such power in our minds. Because we have the choice of what we do with it all. While revisiting memories can be a joy, from some wonderful encounter, trip, conversation, or event, it can also allow us to choose to hold onto something that leaves us bitter, that stirs irrationality, or that causes us to resist ideas of reality. 

As humans we aren't very good at letting go and we tend to get comfortable in a mindset and don't want to step out into reality. We like the control of it, even if we know it's likely not the best for us to hold onto. We are too comfortable in our own way, and think it is not really anyone else's business anyway. We are each the ruler of our own thoughts and can do whatever we want to. A fierce independence separated from an objective moral value is the way of the world today, as C.S. Lewis wrote about. He points out that the moral environment is not something we invented, it is something we discovered. We hear often today that everyone can make their own values and do whatever they like, rather than subscribe to some "rules" that seem restrictive, and yet those who are living with that idea are actually abiding by the ideas that values are objective in order to stake their claims. If you truly step outside the objective values then you are running your life by irrationality and emotion of the moment. 

I have written several posts about my love for Lilith by George MacDonald. I am just diving into another re-read, because this book is beloved. It's fantasy, and so odd and strange in the best ways that leave me thinking and musing its questions and paradoxes. It begins with a young man, who has the views of a scientific materialistic mind, who has come back to his family home to live, and it's ancient and full of hidden passages. He sits in the library reading most days, until he starts seeing things. An elderly librarian of old days who appears then disappears. Rumors of the house being haunted leaves him skeptical, until he sees the old man again, and follows him through many twisting passages and staircases to an unknown quarter. He views a mirror into a landscape that looks into another world, and stumbles into it, landing in the other realm, met by this older man, who sometimes looks like a raven and sometimes an old man. The narrator doesn't believe he has come through a door, as he never saw a door (remember, he's a materialist and only believes what he sees), and Mr. Raven begins to befuddle his brain - 

"I never saw any door!" I persisted.
"Of course not!" he returned, "all the doors you had yet seen - and you haven't seen many - were doors in; here you came upon a door out! The strange thing to you," he went on thoughtfully, "will be, that the more doors you go out of, the farther you get in!"
"Oblige me by telling me where I am."
"That is impossible. You know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home."

If this sounds a little bit like a mix of C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle ("I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!") and The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, I would agree. C.S. Lewis was hugely influenced by MacDonald, seeing him as his mentor (like Dante viewing Virgil as his mentor). Lewis Carroll was good friends with George MacDonald and spent a lot of time with the family. The writers and books speak to one another in real time and across time, it's wonderful. 

It invokes the wonder and mystery of the world beyond. Shown in ways that stretch our imaginations. So here we go on this journey of the landscapes of the mind, with George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis. Through the imagination of a story published in 1895, re-visiting with Lilith always opens me to the deeper landscapes, into places that offer seeing truth and wisdom, through doors leading further up and further in.

I reach for a landscape in my mind.
It is full of beauty and calm, a place
Familiar like memory from the deep,
But telling that it's only the surface.
There is so much more, we think
We know all the detail we see
It passes by us each day ensured
By our preeminence we feel free
While held fast in the grasp, held.
The hardest thing is to loosen the fingers
Strangely secure to grasp the control
Though preventing true freedom in divine 
Whence in release allows air to extol. 

Sundry Reading Days

 

As laughter here breeds laughter, there above sheer happiness shoots brilliant flares. Below, a darkening shadow marks the saddened mind.

- Paradiso, Canto 9, Dante

Readers read together and alone. The beauty of reading is that it can be solo, or you can read with others either at the same time, aloud, or silently. If you are like me attached to the physical book (the wonderful feeling, smell, texture, essence of the book itself), batteries will not run out, no books will run out of charge. No books will kick you out when your subscription time has elapsed. In fact, books invite you in - to deeper understanding, learning, and perspective. Inviting you to linger on the pages. 

Reader, are you constantly looking for more time to read? Etching out our schedule so that you squeeze a few hours (or more) into weekends to read? Cast aside other plans to read? Decide not to go out because you'd rather read? Ask everyone you know what they are reading? Ponder to yourself how anyone could think there was such a thing as too much reading? 

If you are wondering why someone would want to read so much, it's a fact of sundry reading that you get a wide variety of books to enjoy and learn from. Last weekend I finished reading Plato's Phaedrus, his take on friendship, and then finished reading The Divine Comedy by Dante in a modern translation I had not read before and loved it. Then I summed up last week by reading The Early Church by Henry Chadwick, which starts from the beginning of the church in the ancient world and into the first few centuries AD. Then, just for fun I threw in Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, a book about living experiences now to build up memory dividends and not waiting for some future date, and also My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff, a memoir of a young women in NYC entering into the literary agent world in the 1990s. 

In this delicious stew of books, we have philosophy, fiction/poetry, history, business/finance, and non-fiction. From ancient BC writings, to the current modern day ideas. I would argue that you cannot get this robust flavor or serendipitous compilation of ideas and thought-provoking encounters except by exploring the world of books and allowing such meetings to occur, mix, and provide a plethora of musings.

Perhaps you think me too fastidious to place such importance onto books and these chance encounters. But I would come back and say that books talk to one another across time, space, and my tiny apartment. C.S. Lewis is always referencing ancient writers and I go to my shelf to grab that book to read. Dante seeks wisdom as his mentor Virgil comes out of the ancient world to guide him. Books reference one another, play off one another, build off older ideas, describe ideas in context of today. The more I read, the more I learn about to read more from the references. Who were your authors reading? How did they formulate their ideas?  It's a cycle of research I am very glad to get on and around every corner there is a whole new shelf of authors to discover.