Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A Bookworm's Journal

Almost every year I resolve to keep my daily journal updated with a list of what I'm currently reading, along with brief thoughts and reflections on that reading. And almost every year, I discover that by February or March, such journal entries have become sporadic at best.

So this year, 2006, I've decided to go out on a limb and start a blog. Whether or not anyone beyond a few close friends and family members will ever see it, I don't know. The purpose of this blog is simple: to keep a record of what I'm reading (books, articles, online material) and to give myself some creative space to reflect on what I'm reading. I hope the novelty of keeping a blog (though I've plenty of favorite blogs that I read at least semi-regularly, I'm a novice blogger myself) might keep me invested in the discipline of more regular reflection.

Reading is one of the delights of my life! I read for information, but much more commonly for formation. Reading keeps me grounded in a lifetime of learning, loving, dreaming...and it connects me to the learning, loving, dreaming conversations of others both in the present and the past.

I chose the title of this blog, "Endless Books" from a quote by C.S. Lewis. I placed it in its entirety in my profile, but will repeat it here. Lewis wrote: "I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books." It's true, my own list of influences would be slightly different (for starters, I'd have to include rainy afternoons on the stair landing, and countless hours spent in trees) but would most likely end on the same note. "Endless books."

No comments: