Books That Make You Think

A Book
Emily Dickinson

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

In a Library
Emily Dickinson

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old:

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

I was recently at a loss for something to read; I was tired of reading the same old things, novels with no purpose but to entertain. I decided to do what anyone would do these days when at a loss, I got on Google, and searched for "Books that make you think". I found a list of 56 that I plan to work on personally over time. The first that I have chosen is "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson". These are my reflections on what I read, as well as those of my friend Sarah. Hopefully those that read them will find them informative, maybe even inspiring; The ultimate goal is that the reader is inspired to read the book themselves.

This is why I have chosen to start with these particular poems. Books transport us out of our day to day existence and into a world where anything is possible. They can make us forget a bad situation for a while, they can teach us how to improve it. They can give us hope when we thought it was gone, they can make us laugh or cry. But most of all they make us think, they make us question ourselves and our situation. The best thing we can do with the discoveries we make because of these questions is to share them, so here are mine.