Margaret Renkl is right, there is great joy in finding fellow bibliophiles with whom to share your enthusiasm for books.
Flip-side of that, I keep discovering to my predictable disappointment, is the great sadness in failing to find readers among one's students. I don't just mean the students who don't read the assignments before class (or maybe ever, judging from some of their exam scores). I mean students who love to receive reading recommendations, to hear about books they now can't wait to read, who understand
what great writing has always done for readers. It can transport us and delight us, yes, but it can also open our hearts. “Books are not about passing the time”... “They’re about other lives. Other worlds.” The only real way to walk in another person’s shoes is to read another’s person’s story.
But I'll keep making those classroom recommendations, looking for signs of cultural as well as literal literacy among Gen Z (as I did with their predecessors). I really think our future depends on it.
“Great fiction is a lie that teaches us the truth. Reading history is how we keep from repeating the past…reading transforms the reader.” And as Mr. Twain said, those who don’t read have no advantage over those who cannot. https://t.co/OInkgxRho4
— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) September 26, 2022
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