Book Block • February 2016

As I've been watching these book blocks being made, I'm reminded of the quote from C. S. Lewis: "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."

I love seeing the covers of cherished books from my childhood being made in these blocks, and certainly--since we are all beyond the "age of fifty" -- we have a chance to evaluate what stands the test of time.  As Mortimer Adler noted, "In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you" and these have obviously gotten through to us.

Someday I'm going to have the luxury of re-reading some of my favorite books, but I seem to be on that hurried twenty-first century schedule of one-and-done-and-move-on.  Perhaps this feeling is not peculiar to our era, but others, from other times have also felt this way; however, books have a way of stopping time, of "reading us" as W. H. Auden noted, and so for just a moment, we can linger in a space without clocks, without to-do lists, and just be drawn into a story.  Thanks for letting me think about books, Cindy, as I rush off to sew something else.