It’s April Fools Day as I write this. And I was thinking that the weather is playing the April Fools with us all- “Boo, it’s still winter!” It seems to be saying. And all I can do is sigh and patiently wait for the warm days to arrive…eventually.
In the mean time I am keeping myself busy with stuff that interests me, and hopefully getting better at them. Because the other option is to scroll on the phone in the little time pockets we have have in our lives. And that doomscrolling leads to a lot of anxiety for me these days. The news is not doing any one of us any service. All the political news from all over the world and from our own backyard only spells doom to come, it seems. And I don’t want to feel miserable and down from all of that. So I try avoiding going there mostly. Not that it’s easy. It surely is not. Being on the phone is easy and fast. Pulling out a book and getting back into it and staying in it is not that easy and fast. It may become fun, but only if we invest some part of ourselves to dig deeper into its text.
But, a book is where I would rather be.
My two reads at the moment are Emma Donaghue’s Paris Express on Audible, and The Pelican History of Canada by Kenneth McNaught in a paperback.
I am going to be seeing Emma Donaghue next week! She will be talking about her new release “Paris Express” at the Hot Docs here in Toronto. And so I want to make sure I have finished this book before that event. I am going to attend with some of my book club friends, and it promises to be a great evening. Which I am looking forward to a lot!
The History of Canada book was a Little Free Library find, and I figured it’s time! I moved to Canada from India way back in 2001, and dove right into getting my masters degree, followed by finding a job, and getting married soon after. Since I did not go to school here I have not read or studied Canadian History in any detail whatsoever. I only know bits and pieces here and there from my reading and living in this country. I think reading this book will give me a better idea of how this country came to be. And it helps that the book is written in an engaging way, not the dry textbook style. That helps me be motivated to actually read it, not just aspire to!
After complaining last week about not finding the time to read, I came across the podcast interview of Emily Kwilinski by Laura Vanderkam on her podcast Before Breakfast (which I listen to as I drive to the gym everyday) titled “How To Read the Classics”. They were talking about the value these old books still have to give us, and hence they are deemed as classics. And them just discussing books like Anna Karenina, Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities, and making time for reading them, I obviously got excited about reading again. And sure enough I made sure I had time to read As You Like It by William Shakespeare last week. And once I dove in, I couldn’t stop reading!
That’s the magic of good texts. And the magic of focus too…it’s hard to have focus to start with, but if we can find it, it keeps us busy and interested and curious!
With that same focus, I plan to get this week’s reading accomplished too. One book at a time. One week at a time. Now that I am back on the reading track, I don’t want to spook myself out with a long drawn plan for the year. Just one book at a time is plenty. And well, audiobooks are for gym time, so as long as I keep showing up to work out, I keep getting through my audiobooks. And it helps if I am enjoying them too, like I am Paris Express at the moment 🙂
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