Coming Soon: Plum Picks

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy. ~Edward P. Morgan

Sitting at the kitchen table reading….that is always the first image that comes to mind of my father. “Voracious reader” must have my dad’s picture next to it in the dictionary. It was easy to know what to get him for Christmas or his birthday, the challenge was to find a perfect book that none of the other eight kids thought of first! I used to hide the books I was reading from him when I was little, not because I didn’t want him to know what I was reading, but because he would read anything — including our text books — and I wanted to have whatever I was reading available to me when I wanted to read it. (I’m still that way. I am guilty of buying more that one copy of a book that I know someone else in the house will want to read at the same time. Once, I had the newest Harry Potter delivered by amazon, picked up from the library, and purchased at a store on the day it was released.)

When I was in college, working the four-to-midnight shift at the tannery each summer, Dad and I often read the same books and would compare notes at the kitchen table where he always waited, book in hand, for the last of the Hart kids to arrive home. We ribbed him for his habit of reading the “good parts” out loud to us. I think over the years, I heard all of his favorite, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I find myself doing the same thing when I am reading or re-reading a book that I find interesting or entertaining… Steve and the kids will roll their eyes at the mention of one of my favorite titles.

I love to read. There are few pleasures that I take as much delight in as reading a good story or conversing with another bluestocking or bibliophile over a good cuppa. On the way home from Foggy Bottom last night, Sarah’s best friend and unofficial Neitz kid JP2 requested that I begin a new feature on books I am reading — what a fun idea! In her honor, I’m calling it “Plum Picks.” Watch for it!

(I’ll love to hear what you are reading, too!)

If you have never said “Excuse me” to a parking meter or bashed your shins on a fireplug, you are probably wasting too much valuable reading time. ~Sherri Chasin Calvo

Tags: Plum Picks, reading