"All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books." ~Thomas Carlyle
A good book is magic that lives forever in the heart.
While waiting in line at the library to check out some books, I noticed displayed on the "recommended read" shelf Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, published in 1945.
I smiled.
I remembered the delight of reading the engaging novel as a teenager and how close I felt to the main character, Francie Nolan. Seeing the book was seeing a precious friend.
"People die, but books never die," President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "No man and no force can abolish memory."
Books live and endure. Reread a classic, a favorite, a book that mattered. You will see more in the book AND you will see more in you than was there before. Heart-to-heart. Magic.
"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island," said Walt Disney, "And best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."
"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors," observed American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher.
Is there a book waiting for you to open today?