Reading has a reputation as the quintessential quiet activity. Picture reading and you might think of hushed libraries and shushing librarians or a cozy afternoon whiled away in silence on the couch with a good novel and perhaps a purring cat on your lap. There are even silent reading parties where guests BYOB (bring your own book) and sit in companionable quiet. A bookish introvert’s dream! Yet, despite reading’s association with quiet individual immersion, it has a loud, communal history. In fact, for millennia, reading was something only done out loud. Here’s a quick primer on how reading went silent.
Most nights I don’t sleep well, so to relax, I often listen to audiobooks or the radio. Other people’s words keep me from sliding into the canyon of doom, where all around shouts of “you’re screwed” reverberate. For many months I put on murder mysteries, but in an effort to embrace a more soothing sort of rest, I have started listening to compilations of the Shipping Forecast, a BBC Radio 4 production that is no fancier than its name suggests: It is, simply, a program featuring weather reports that narrate the gales and tides around the British Isles. If some people doze off to the sound of rain, I fall asleep to broadcasters announcing the rain that is to come.
This Other Eden is a story of good intentions, bad faith, worse science, but also a tribute to community and human dignity and the possibility of another world. In both, it has much to say to our times.
A book about staring down the barrel of a stage four cancer diagnosis could have made for grim reading. But beloved actor, Richard E. Grant brings his likeable nature and positive personality to the unsurprisingly-named, A Pocketful of Happiness. This memoir is a love letter to his darling wife, Joan Washington, and a reminder of the things that truly matter in life.
This crisp book is full of wonderful details and fresh information about half-known, half-remembered names. Some should stay like that. But Nevil Shute was spot on: skilled writing can make anything interesting.
high tide of light rises up upon the sky
we are awash all day in glory