Caffeinated Politics

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens in a bookstore. It’s not loud or flashy. It doesn’t demand your attention like a movie trailer or a viral video. It’s quieter, more intimate, something that I have always found so fulfilling. There is a sense of unfolding possibilities as my fingers trace the spines of books that are new to me. Perhaps authors I have never heard of, but ones who write the genres that strike at my core. It can very much feel akin to a door waiting to be opened.

During the pandemic I sought out the ideas of friends from across the world (lady from Britain was stunned I had never read James Michener, so I did) as we spent more time indoors and faced far fewer distractions. James and I have always turned to books for entertainment and escape. During that time our increased purchasing of books matched the mood of so many others in the country. (We liken our book buying as being similar to defense department spending….unlimited.) From a data report in 2023, I read that print book sales in the U.S. rose by 8.9% since 2020. Self-publishing also flourished with throngs of new voices emerging between the printed pages. Between 700,000 and 1 million new titles are released annually, with half of them self-published. Down-right impressive.

It was during the pandemic that I explored a bevy of authors that others had enjoyed for years but were new to me. What pleasures they were and continue to be. The best entertainment dollar is still found between the pages of a book. For the price of a paperback, I can travel across centuries, solve a mystery, or inhabit the mind of someone utterly unlike myself. No buffering, no ads, no algorithms, just me and the story.

Book lovers will know that the joy begins even before the first page is opened. Book shopping is its own ritual: the slow wander through shelves or browsing book catalogs or online treasure troves of striking cover,s with the promise of a convincing blurb that hints at something special with the purchase. I have gambled with a few debut novelists whose prose and plots did not fail me. James and I always comment on such finds in that these discoveries are not just transactions. They are beginnings.

Then comes the need for the prefect setting in which to read a book. Maybe it’s a sunny afternoon and I am stretched out on the lawn, the book casting a shadow across my chest as I turn the pages. Or maybe it’s a rainy evening, the soft percussion of drops on the roof above, (just like when a kid back home) and I am curled into a favorite chair. For me, in all such situations I love a hot cup of coffee beside me. I am sincere when I write that in such cases the world narrows to the page, and in no time, I am somewhere else.

This summer James read exclusively French literature and last check he has polished off 25 volumes. A great-granddaughter of B.B. Clarke who lives in France has sent packers of books and James has been enthralled with them. I read some history each day from a wide assortment of time periods and places, but towards the end of the afternoon or late at night I pick up my latest fiction paperback. George Meyer, the former Wisconsin DNR Secretary told me during the pandemic to read Daniel Silva. “But read them in order”. I have followed his sage advice and have never regretted a single page.

I feel so restored after time spent reading. It is as if my mind needs some stimulation that books provide. These moments are quiet, personal, and yet for me they are also profound. That is why I hear from fellow book lovers that reading is far more than a hobby. I knew during the pandemic as we were abiding with the advice of doctors and scientists that in our isolation we were not alone. There were millions like us turning the pages worldwide. There was a comfort in knowing that to be the case.

So many of the authors I first read several years ago are the ones that I continue to enjoy, reading the works in the order they were written. It strikes me as I write on a Friday evening, the same day and time when as a boy Dad drove me to our small one-room library in Hancock, Wisconsin, how long lasting the joy of reading has been in my life. At times we would laugh that some of our relatives were driving to the local taverns in the village for the night and he would mimic a drunk behind the wheel and be goofy. It was a ritual each Friday evening to return some books and talk with Winifred Carlton behind the small desk she occupied, as I checked out new ones.

That simple pleasure has never been lost on me these decades later. Books remain the best entertainment value. From the covers that catch my eye and the paragraphs that are creatively constructed and at times demand to be read twice for the way they landed on the page. To the joy of reading not because I must do it, but because I desire to do so. Because in this world of chaos and bombastic nuttery I know a book is the place where time slows down, and pleasure abounds.

And with James alongside me with his book that makes for a perfect time. Let it rain or snow or the gales blow. As long as there is another book page to turn all is good.