There are books that open doors. This is one of those. When uninspired, one has to just find this book and the loftiness of the thought, the loftiness granted to reading, the loftiness of the works opened lifts one up immediately. He begins with Homer in the Golden Age and goes through all the intervening periods upto the modern age. He covers 189 authors - talks about them warmly and fondly and their works that he recommends to read. The profiles cover a brief biography of the authors and are inspiring and welcoming to their works.
One doesn't need to read it cover to cover. But pick it up often, to see what you've read and what goes on the TBR.
There is even a ten year reading plan at the end of the book.
Today (15/6), I open it at random and read about Isak Dinesen. I am reading her Out of Africa at the moment, and long ago have read some of her stories. But I haven't read her Seven Gothic Tales which Charles Von Doren recommends reading. Perhaps this goes next on the TBR.
Her Out of Africa is a beautiful book. There is something about the breadth and depth of a lived life, a different than usual life, that when finds expression, even in simple words, reveals such width and depth of thought and perspective that it is not only delightful but strangely calm and tranquil. I guess any new perspective on the world lifts you out from your own ruts of seeing, and is refreshing. Makes you tranquil that the world is so much more than what your own existence can make you think of. Makes you tranquil also perhaps because there is a generosity of thought, of way of regarding the world, that makes you think about the artist's life rather than art, or when life becomes art. There is an unhurried rhythm to her prose that adds to that calmness felt on reading her. Largesse, unhurriedness, generosity, depth, breadth - all in simple words.
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