this is the first book i started to read post-twins, and it was a good choice! it is a wonderful ode to books and how they enrich your life. the conversations in the book simply underlined my need to find time to read, for myself, and to the twins. it also gave me a long list of book recommendations, quite different to what i might pick up for myself.
“Printed books have body, presence... I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but I can’t feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can’t whack you upside it.”
“That’s one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something to talk about when we don’t want to talk about ourselves.”
"Mom preferred authors who paint with few strokes. She loved abstract art and I love figurative."
“Really, whenever you read something wonderful, it changes your life, even if you aren’t aware of it.”
“part of the process of Mom’s dying was mourning not just her death, but also the death of our dreams of things to come.”
“when you’re with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.”
"The Elegance of the Hedgehog is, in many ways, a book about books (and films): what they can teach us, and how they can open up worlds. But it’s really, like most great books, about people--and the connections they make, how they save one another and themselves."
“joy is a product not of whether characters live or die, but of what they’ve realized and achieved, or how they are remembered.”
“She was surrounded by books... They were mom’s companions and teachers. They had shown her the way... What comfort could be gained from staring at my lifeless e-reader?”
“her conviction that books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose... is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in the human conversation.’
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