What I’m Reading Now

Once in a lifetime of reading, okay - maybe twice if you are really lucky, we stumble upon an author whose words resonate so deeply within us that it feels as though we might have written the words ourselves or, in my case, wish that I had written them myself.  I am savoring such a book right now, and I have to share it with you.

The book is Barbara Holland’s Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences

It is fantastic.  The first line in the book from her essay titled “Waking Up” reads:

“Obviously the best possible time to wake up is in the June of our tenth year, on the first day of summer vacation.”

Isn’t that line absolute perfection?  In her essay "Breakfast", Holland writes,

“What was once an ordinary, underappreciated breakfast- two eggs over easy, bacon, and a well-buttered English muffin, for instance – now packs the guilty wallop of adultery, or starting the day with a slug of Napoleon brandy."

Wow.  Reading this woman’s words is like taking a writing class from a master craftsman: not alcohol, but “a slug of Napoleon brandy”; not just breakfast, but “two eggs over easy, bacon, and a well-buttered English muffin”.  And that’s just eight pages in!  I can’t believe how good the writing is. 

I find I am pacing myself with this one – only allowing myself to read a few pages of it at a time, like taking dainty sips of cordial from petite crystal stemware.  I’ll leave you with one more line from"Breakfast":

“Only the virtuous can truly appreciate sin.”

Amen, Sister Holland.  Amen.