My philosophy toward books is a lot like my philosophy toward friends and music: I'm biased toward the old. Which is why I'm probably the only twenty-something in America who listens to James Taylor and Emmylou Harris and likes it. Which is why I don't write music reviews.
Recently, I moved to a new town in a new state, away from friends and family. Although, I have done this several times in my life, I will never get used to it. The new is always jarring; a volatile mix of excitement and disappointment. In these times I find something old and cling to it. That something old becomes my place to stand while my world moves. In the middle of high school I moved from a small Midwestern town to a major metropolitan area, from a class of 100 to a class of almost 800. Rather than enduring the humiliation of eating lunch standing up (you had to have friends to co-opt a table and chairs), I escaped to the library and read Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Story Girl. I read it six times in four months. By the end of that time I had a place to stand and a place to sit and eat lunch, but every time I brush my hand across the cover of that book I remember the beauty it gave my vulnerability.
As we move into a new year, full of changes, deaths, births, new books, new music, new celebrity couples and breakups here are two recommendations for a literary place to stand while your world moves.
1. The Essays of EB White: In the intricate details of simple life, EB White unearths beauty and meaning. I am not much of an animal person but White's depictions of geese, raccoons and farm living are humorous and important. They take us away from the clinking and clunking of our worlds, equip us with wisdom and wit and send us back refreshed and ready. White was an essayist for the New Yorker long before he wrote his children's books and it is within non-fiction that we see this man's great soul and find ours restored.
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