I love books.
This post is a day late because yesterday I attended the Savannah Book Festival, where I was so engrossed with writers talking about their own writing, I flat-out forgot my own.
But what happens when I hear other writers talk about their writing is I see the the power that writers have. While most writing can change lives, books are the medium that gripped many of us early on and never let us go.
Books have definitely shaped my life. One of the authors I heard yesterday was Rachelle Bergstein, who wrote The Genius of Judy Blume.
I was right in that age bracket when some of Judy Blume’s most well-known and influential books came out. I was ten when Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret came out. I don’t think I read it that year, but in the next couple I surely did. So many of the issues were things I thought about – and things the adults around me did not discuss openly. It was a life-changing book for me.
Often my peers did not discuss these issues openly, either.
For example, religion was thought to be black and white, conservative and with certain rules that needed to be followed. This came more from my community than my parents, who taught us we had religious freedom and reminded us pastors were people who could be questioned. Of course, my dad was raised Lutheran in the South and my mom’s family did not attend church in Wales very often, so we were different from our peers – many whose parents had attended church every time the doors were open and the pastor’s words were God’s.
And out bodies – menstruation and sex. Totally tabboo.
I loved that I could read these books that made me think and learn. They certainly helped shape me – in a very good way.
Invest in those things you love. I’m investing in books.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury
In the Box, Out of the Box 