"The World is a Book..."

Hello Writers!

Many writers have exclaimed over how a book changed their life, but Adair Jones, on her blog "Word Search with Adair Jones," writes in her post entitled "Books in Our Lives," about how books have been intimately associated with some of her most cherished memories. She asserts that the many stories she's absorbed have shaped her life cumulatively, explaining how these narratives have intersected with everyday life in ways that are both unexpected and influential. For example, she reminisces about how reading "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath prompted her to visit the UN, where she eventually worked for many years, and about how "Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino is a book she'll always associate with the first date she went on with the man who would become her husband, because he bought it for her as a gift that day.

As writers, it is this kind of exposure to stories that is inspirational. Books open us up to worlds beyond our own, and allow us to bang around in another's frame of reference. In the process, we are enriched and challenged, as well as given new tools for constructing narratives of our own.  Adiar Jones writes, "what we read intersects with our lives in strange and magical ways." There can be no better reason to read as writers! Pick up something new, something that tickles your fancy or makes you curious. Read a book, take a journey!

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." -Augustine