Reading with Purpose: Thoughts from 1937 &1903

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

From 1937–

I try to read one book every two weeks. 25 books a year can do much to brighten and make interesting a practical, overworked housewife.

I try to vary my reading diet. I believe the menu for our minds should be as well balanced as the menu for our tummies. So I include four types of mental food from which I choose:

1. Non-fiction (biography, travel, etc.)
2. Poetry (or plays)
3. Worth-while fiction (perhaps something old and tried, or perhaps something new)
4. Light fiction (which may include anything at all even to detective stories if I am so inclined! This is dessert!)

I choose from these four types in order, then start all over again.

Can I tell you what this plan has meant to me? I think I’m becoming better educated than I was. I know I’m becoming happier and more interesting. You know, there’s nothing like interest and happiness to erase lines from one’s face!

I love this plan. Growing up, my sisters and I could check out 1 Nancy Drew book for every 4 books we borrowed from the library. Of course, we double-dipped and read each other’s Nancy Drew books. But we always settled into the more substantial books after we’d enjoyed dessert first. 

As an adult, it’s easy to get into a rut and only read “dessert” books after a long, stressful day. But during some seasons in life, that’s the best you can do. Right now I’m plugging my way through The Blithedale Romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I haven’t read the book in years and I’ve always enjoyed Hawthorne. But some evenings lately, it just takes more concentration than I feel I have. If I keep reading 10 pages or so a night, I’ll get through it before long, though. 

The mystery novels of Carolyn Wells have been my choice of dessert lately.  She was an author writing in the early 1900s and why she’s largely unknown nowadays, I can’t comprehend! I just finished reading this entire collection. 

And this tidbit is from 1903–Of course, the quotes below would apply to women as well as men.

“What shall I read?” This is an important question to all. It’s especially important to those living in country homes, for those having few associates are influenced much more by what they read, where books become real companions, either to elevate or degrade. Let us be very careful in the selection of our books. Not just selecting a book that is simply harmless, but choosing those that will broaden and ennoble our lives.

It can be truly said, “Show me what a person reads and I can tell what sort of man he is.” How many times we read of boys leaving all that is good and pure, leading dissolute lives, often guilty of grave crimes, who were led to such lives by reading pernicious books. And again how many times the reading of a good book has turned the scale in persons’ lives and they have become noble, helpful men, whose lives are an inspiration to all.

Watch a child, that has few young companions, during the time he is reading such a book as “Little Men.” See how he lives with the characters of the book; he enjoys all their sports, feels all their sorrows. In fact, his imaginative life becomes as real to him as his real life is. Knowing all this one begins to realize the great influence of books.

For older readers in the field of fiction we find too many good authors to mention their names. We would say in selecting a book, remember to accept nothing that is unreal or sensational, which gives a young person a too romantic or sentimental view of life.

 

I SOOO wish the author included a list of books! How many gems have been lost to time in the past 122 years?

Are you interested in a book list of classic and vintage books? I’ve collected several throughout the years. I’m considering compiling them into one, and including additional books that I’ve discovered on my own. Let me know if you’d like a copy!