Melanie Frances's Blog
April 28, 2021
Why do I read?
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to read for me these days.
Since I had my son Noah in 2015, my feverish days of non-stop reading and devouring books one after the other have long gone. My time is shared with this fiery (and often exhausting) little being, whose development and experience of life requires my attention and love with a ferocity and immediacy that is something to behold.
I have always read to live more fully, to live a million lives, to look at life through the prisms of a glass not darkly, but much, much brighter. Fiction always felt to me like the infinite ways light is reflected, projected and caught in ice, the beauty and wildness of currents frozen in space.
Now I want to read to beat death. When time contracts, when you have to carefully choose where your energy is directed, I want to read books that feel vital and necessary. If I waver between two titles, I often ask myself, “Which one should I read first, if I were to get hit by lightning in a week?”
It’s a different kind of reading. It is less idle, unbridled and innocent. It feels more like a decisive and urgent act, a choice born out of intense curiosity and a mysterious pull that I cannot fully explain, nor wish to understand.
We are always morphing. My past experience of reading, with all its youthful ebullience, had to die somehow and be reborn to meet this season of my life.
There are so many pieces of ice to look at life through and I want to hold the brightest ones.
Since I had my son Noah in 2015, my feverish days of non-stop reading and devouring books one after the other have long gone. My time is shared with this fiery (and often exhausting) little being, whose development and experience of life requires my attention and love with a ferocity and immediacy that is something to behold.
I have always read to live more fully, to live a million lives, to look at life through the prisms of a glass not darkly, but much, much brighter. Fiction always felt to me like the infinite ways light is reflected, projected and caught in ice, the beauty and wildness of currents frozen in space.
Now I want to read to beat death. When time contracts, when you have to carefully choose where your energy is directed, I want to read books that feel vital and necessary. If I waver between two titles, I often ask myself, “Which one should I read first, if I were to get hit by lightning in a week?”
It’s a different kind of reading. It is less idle, unbridled and innocent. It feels more like a decisive and urgent act, a choice born out of intense curiosity and a mysterious pull that I cannot fully explain, nor wish to understand.
We are always morphing. My past experience of reading, with all its youthful ebullience, had to die somehow and be reborn to meet this season of my life.
There are so many pieces of ice to look at life through and I want to hold the brightest ones.
April 7, 2021
My Book Hunter
To my U.S. friends on Goodreads!
The universe will always knock you back into your path.
*
Yesterday, I decided to shift my energy and attention back to the thing that lights me up the most: sharing books with people on Instagram.
*
My passion project My Book Hunter returns from the ashes, like a stubborn little Phoenix, in a wildly different form.
*
In this space, you will find hard cover books of fiction that have radically changed my life, shaped my inner world and blazed through my imagination like wildfire.
*
They will all be for sale on my site, paired with a tumbled crystal picked specifically for each book and a mystery spirit animal card chosen intuitively for each buyer.
*
I’ve always thought that books were alive and magical, imbued with intention and purpose and that the right ones find you exactly when you need them.
*
I would love to see you in this space!
You can find me at @mybookhunter on IG.
https://www.mybookhunter.com
The universe will always knock you back into your path.
*
Yesterday, I decided to shift my energy and attention back to the thing that lights me up the most: sharing books with people on Instagram.
*
My passion project My Book Hunter returns from the ashes, like a stubborn little Phoenix, in a wildly different form.
*
In this space, you will find hard cover books of fiction that have radically changed my life, shaped my inner world and blazed through my imagination like wildfire.
*
They will all be for sale on my site, paired with a tumbled crystal picked specifically for each book and a mystery spirit animal card chosen intuitively for each buyer.
*
I’ve always thought that books were alive and magical, imbued with intention and purpose and that the right ones find you exactly when you need them.
*
I would love to see you in this space!
You can find me at @mybookhunter on IG.
https://www.mybookhunter.com
