This
year, I’m trying to be more intentional in engaging people about the books
we’re reading. I’m asking for reading recommendations, and joining them in
conversation about makes a book enjoyable enough to want to share it with
others. My goal is to read, deeply and attentively, fifty book recommendations
while in my 50’s. (It would be wonderful if I could read fifty in one year, but
that seems unlikely, given the realities and demands of life right now.) Even
though this book wasn’t one of the books that a friend recommended, it made a
perfect work to read early in the “50 at 50 Project”, as I’ve come to think of
it.
Actually,
I don’t recall how this book came to be on my reading list, but it has been
there a long time. Maybe someone really did recommend it to me, and I’ve
forgotten the details. Perhaps I came across it on the shelves of a bookstore
back in the late 90’s, though it doesn’t seem like a book that would have spent
much time in stores, to be honest. It seems like the kind of book with a limited
appeal, but many small, beautiful things don’t catch the attention and
imagination of the masses.
