reading – sethlewis.ie

Seven Books That Changed My Perspective

Communication is powerful. Written and spoken words can carry ideas, and ideas can change the world. This week, I’d like to share with you seven books that changed the way I think about things. There are many other books that I love and many that I have enjoyed greatly, but for a book to be on this list, it has to have changed my perspective on something. Here they are, in no particular order:

Quotes I Can’t Forget

Words are powerful. They can communicate ideas, and ideas can change everything. Every once in a while someone captures a profound idea so well with their words that it hits my brain hard enough to stick and it won’t let go so it ends up becoming part of me. This week I want to share with you a few quotes that have become part of me. The hard part was picking just a few, so you’re likely to see this kind of post again in the future. Here they are:

A Thousand Words Are Worth A Picture

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but as someone pointed out to me recently—can you draw a picture that effectively communicates that concept? Maybe you’re a good artist and you have an idea of how you could do that well, but I’ve never seen anyone try, and isn’t it interesting that the phrase always comes to us in words, not pictures? The whole point is that pictures are more powerful, but to make that powerful point we use words, not pictures.

The Plot Twists In My Own Story

I recently finished my first Agatha Christie novel, after hearing my whole life about how good her mysteries are. Yes, it was good. At one point or another I thought almost every character was the murderer. The plot kept twisting through the pages in such unexpected ways that I had no choice but to check out of reality for the rest of the day in order to find out what happened. Good thing it was my day off.

One of the wonderfully frustrating things that I love and hate about books is that they take a long time to get through. A movie is fast—the action carries me along to a conclusion in a matter of hours. A book is slow (compounded for me by my slow reading pace), leaving me in suspense for ages while I wade through details and conversations and descriptions to find the next big revelation. In that sense, a book is a little more like real life, where the action doesn’t happen in a quick succession that always ties up neatly just before the credits. Real life is full of pauses—evenings and mornings and dirty dishes. A book that takes multiple days to read allows me to live inside the story longer, to enter further into the feelings of the characters who are living through the unknown. For a few days, I’m living there with them. And while a movie is always viewed from a third-person perspective, in a book I can think the characters’ thoughts with them. I can see the plot twists unfold through their eyes. Which feels familiar, because it’s how I see the plot twists unfold in my own life.

Books To Be Quarantined With

All of a sudden, we’ve got extra time on our hands. The children are home from school, lots of us are working from home, and we’ve got two weeks (at least) of cancelled events and nobody calling over for a cuppa. It’s a perfect time to pour that cuppa for yourself, sit down, and pour a few good books into your soul. Here’s some that my family and I have found enjoyable…

Of Blogging For A Year (And Also O.C.D., Music, And Travel)

I missed the bandwagon. Years ago, blogging was the thing to do, but it’s well past its edgy coolness now. It’s one of the older platforms in the world of online discourse, but a year ago I started anyway with a post called “What’s New About New Ireland?”. The fact is, some thoughts don’t fit neatly into the confines of a tweet or the text on a meme. For me, the process of distilling my scattered thoughts into words and sentences and paragraphs each week for a year has helped immeasurably to sharpen those same thoughts in my own mind. I hope it has been helpful to others as well. I like the freedom to write about anything I’m thinking about, which is why I used only my name for the site address: the thing holding these thoughts together is the fact that I thought them, and even that is a stretch because most of my thoughts are gleaned from the brains of others. Along the way, I’ve developed a growing appreciation for the amount of work others put in to expressing their thoughts carefully and well amid the constant stream of articles, news stories, and posts that is our modern internet. It’s not an easy task to sharpen English into the kind of point that can stick and do lasting good, and those who do so well have my respect.

On that note, and as a way of celebrating a year of blogging, I’d like to draw your attention to a few other Irish blogs that I have found helpful: Continue reading Of Blogging For A Year (And Also O.C.D., Music, And Travel)

Malarial Mosquitos And The Power Of A Good Book

This post was co-written with my wife, Jessica

“Mommm!”
“Daaad!”

2am. One of us stumbles out of bed. Again.

“….yes?”

“I can’t sleep. I’m afraid.”

What if there are malarial mosquitos in the house? What if I have a heart attack because I ate too much butter? What if I get skin cancer from being outside today? I can’t stop thinking about the bad guy from the cartoon, or the child-snatching monster from the fairy tale, or…

Continue reading Malarial Mosquitos And The Power Of A Good Book