Read a Book in October: National Book Month

Who knew? I didn’t know until yesterday there’s a National Book Month.

“Since 1950, the National Book Foundation has highlighted the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and YA literature. In 2003, the organization created the first National Book Month.” [1] That month, October.

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Anne of Green Gables

I’m so glad to read books that arouse my imagination.

While walking my dog Kona, I’ve been listening to Rachel McAdams read Anne of Green Gables on Audible. Rachel’s narration is rapturous, positively and elegantly expressive.

One characteristic of this classic novel relates to Anne’s extraordinary imagination, her ability to charm herself into a better life, and her effusive exuberance about everything new.

A Walk in the Rain

Yesterday, as I walked Kona, it began to sprinkle. Rain is rare where I live. Sometimes you have to play hopscotch in order for raindrops to land on you.

In this part of the state, farmers, ranchers, and metereologists count every drop.

The raindrops falling on my head brought no complaints from me. It was glorious. And like Anne, I think October adds to what makes the world wonderful.

Imagining what to do if this light sprinkle that felt so good turned into a storm before I could get home, what would I do?

Which made me think of when I walk Kona in the mountains. I have to look out for bears. This summer, the bears came out in record numbers because a late freeze killed the berries that grow on the scrub oaks. At our little cabin in the woods, we lost our second hummingbird feeder to a bear that climbed onto the deck rail, then Thud, it landed on the deck right outside the bedroom window. Yikes!

5:00 am wakeup. Alarm! Bare feet, elevated heart rate, and I hear, “Get the camera.”

(My fault for not bringing the feeder in the night before.) SIGH.

Walking down the roads, I imagine myself running for protection to a deck or porch at the nearest cabin. Only, you’re not supposed to run if you see a bear. Bears are faster than a speeding human. And they climb trees. Gulp!

At home, walking with Kona, I cannot imagine darting onto a stranger’s front porch to seek shelter from rain. Under a tree is the worst place to stand if lightning strikes.

Reigning in my imagination run amok in the rain, I decided there’s more danger of food poisoning than meeting a bear or getting struck by lightning.

I’m not the Wicked Witch of the West so I won’t melt if I get wet.

Kona and I could dash the rest of the way home. He drags me on our walks anyway.

Books and the Doors They Open

Having forgotten the role Anne’s imagination plays in the story, I reread Anne of Green Gables last summer, watched the 1985 Canadian video production years ago (a faithful translation of the book), and now listening to the audio book, Rachel McAdams narration is every bit as vivid as a screen production. Sometimes, imaging a character is better than seeing an actor portray one.

I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

C.S. Lewis

Anne’s vivid imagination carries her beyond dismal realities as she makes marvels of the mundane. A tree, a brook, a bridge or eating ice cream for the first time, imaginary Anne elevates imagination to the sublime.

Each reading adds to my wonder. That is, I wonder how Lucy Maud Montgomery created such vibrant characters, imagined amidst a gorgeous setting (Prince Edward Island), and made up a story beloved by generations of readers.

READ for Your Life

As readers, you and I can identify with character’s strengths and weaknesses. We can see in the story what the characters cannot see. We can process, reflect, and assimilate experiences to help us learn to make changes in our own lives.

“A man who reads lives a thousand lives.

The man who doesn’t read lives only one.”

George R.R. Martin

Among the benefits, reading improves memory and writing skills, and keeps you sharper as you age. Reading reduces stress, relaxes your mind and helps shift gears. Reading can provide greater tranquility, depending of course on what you choose to read.

Reading improves analytical thinking, increases vocabulary, adds to general knowledge and helps you better understand what other people have to say. And some contend that reading can make you happier. Again, according to what you choose to read.

So many books and not enough time to read?

Technology has changed the way people consume reading material. Online, on digital reading devices, audio books, and Yes, actual bound books, the Chicago Tribune reported, “The demise of books is greatly exaggerated.”

According to Pew Research (2016), 28% ebook, 40% print books exclusively account for reader’s tastes, though the numbers may fluctuate. The same research found that the “average reader” reads twelve books per year, and the “typical reader” reads four.

According to one reading survey:

• 28% of Americans have not read a book in the past year.
• 41% of readers have not read a fiction book in the past year.
• 42% of readers have not read a non-fiction book in the past year.

Of those over 60 years of age, 43% read more than fifteen books per year.

But reading is not a contest.

Those who read have the company of their own thoughts and none of the anxiety of being displaced, of thinking or saying the wrong thing.

One author says that reading fiction and poetry are like medicine that can “heal the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”[2]

Choosing to read Anne of Green Gables again, this story reminded me not only “how wonderful it is to live in a world with Octobers,” but how reading (or listening) to a good book invigorates imagination.

[1] https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/national-book-month

[2] quoted in an article published on The New Yorker.com “Can Reading Make you Happier? by Ceridwen Dovey, June 9, 2015