I Think Reading Books Is A Good Place To Start

…The onus is always on us, we the oppressed, to challenge a system that wants to conserve its traditions and traditional values.  We come to understand that if we want to be included in the American conversation, we have to work twice as hard while being told that we’re lazy, or that the government gives us money, and then told that we’re angry if we bring up the problem of racism in public spaces or when it doesn’t feel like the right time.  So we keep putting off these conversations, or we’re having them on the Internet, where it’s too easy to be anonymous and therefore cruel and selfish.  It’s like car drivers behaving dangerously on the road, simply because they’re hidden behind metal, glass and distance.  In our more personal online spaces we fill our feeds exclusively with people we agree with.  If there is conflict below a post or tweet it never feels like a conversation – only like road rage.
So if we can’t seem to find ways to talk in person, or online, when and where and how do we talk?  I think a novel is a kind of conversation.  Both the writer and the reader bring their experience to the page.  The reader’s experiences and ideas can be reshaped, challenged, changed.  I know, I’m a writer, so of course I think the answer is books, but I think reading books is a good place to start thinking about and understanding people’s stories you aren’t familiar with, outside your comfort zone and experience.  A novel will ask you to walk in a character’s shoes, and this can build empathy.  Without empathy we are lost.  I tend to read mostly novels and have come to understand the world better through the lens of novels.  When someone else’s world is different from our own, we see how we are the same.  We not only become more empathetic to their experience but we see how we are equal.  We also see how much upper-middle-class white male writing has been the only thing taught in schools, the only experience for so long – most of the time anyway.  I think institutional change can come by teaching women, teaching writers of color.  We will all be better for it.  I like that novels ask us without seeming to ask us to think about other people, to understand the many-storied landscape of this country we live and die in – with or without truly knowing or understanding them.
—  Tommy Orange
Excerpt from his editorial / opinion piece: “What Novels Can Teach Us“
Appearing in: Time Magazine, dtd: 5 November 2018
Online at:  https://time.com/5434396/tommy-orange-novels-conversations/
Online the article is titled: “How to Talk To Each Other When There’s Little Common Ground“
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What Do Your Children See You Doing?

The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.
—  Leo Buscaglia
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And/Or A Great Soulmate

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end.  You live several lives while reading.
––  William Styron
[In life, a great partner / soulmate / spouse should share their life and deepen yours.  —  KMAB]
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A State With No Business

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
—  Thurgood Marshall
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Maybe A Slight Advantage

The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
—  Mark Twain
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Let Us Dare

The true source of our suffering has been our timidity.  We have been afraid to think.   . . . .   Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
—  President John Adams
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Maps For Those Difficult Times

A book is a map  ….  There will be times in your life when you will feel lost and confused.  The way back to yourself is through reading.  There is not a problem in existence that has not been eased, somewhere and at some time, by a book.  …  The answers have all been written.  And the more you read, the more you will know how to find your way through those difficult times.
―   Matt Haig
From his book:  “Echo Boy“
Quote found on: mylittlebookblog.com
The specific post is located at: http://mylittlebookblog.com/2015/05/04/a-book-is-a-map-there-will-be-times-in-your-life-when-you-will-feel-lost-and-confused-the-way-back-to-yourself-is-through-reading-there-is-not-a-problem-in-existence-that-has-not-been/
[Another of the many blogs I follow.  It doesn’t seem to be updated as frequently as it used to be, but it still has some interesting posts and is worth a visit if you have some time.  —  KMAB]
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