History of Pretzels
Befriend a Book
Why Books?
…Because books are “magical,” says poet Mary Oliver in her poem, The Loon. In this poem, she wakes up and heads to “another room, where my books are lined up / in their neat and colorful rows.” See page 210 in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver for a wonderfully inspiring collection of her work.
As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes about “…the love of learning, the sequestered nooks, / And all the sweet serenity of books.”
Lori Irwin is an avid reader--one of the most devoted readers we know! Here's why Lori loves books:
"Thinking back to early childhood, somebody who loved me always read to me to be closer, to share the love of reading and of words. I read for pure and simple enjoyment, the repetition of stories who became old friends. I still remember my favorite titles: The Littlest Racoon, As the Whales Go By, Chester the Little Pony, Mama Cat and Her Kittens, The Treasury of Children's Literature, and on and on. Comfort! I read for comfort then, and I read for comfort now. I especially loved poems and trying to commit them to memory. A.A. Milne was a favorite, especially Alexander Beetle in "Forgiven." Reading that poem is utter delight. It lilts and lifts and flows just like creek water."
Statistics tell us that folks like books — very much. In fact, some 70% of the US population have read a print book in 12 months. Print books continue to be the most popular, according to the Pew Research Center: “Roughly seven-in-ten U.S. adults (72%) say they have read a book in the past 12 months in any format, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2012, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 8-Feb. 7, 2019. Print books remain the most popular format for reading, with 65% of adults saying they had read a print book in the year before the survey.”
