Book Prints

by G.Parker

I was reading through KSL.com the other day and came across an amazing article.  You can access it here.  The main idea is that each book we read leaves some kind of imprint upon us.  It's like I've said in many of my previous blogs - we are what we read.  They had a quote by author Anna Quindlen:

  "If being a parent consists often of passing along chunks of ourselves to unwitting — often unwilling — recipients, then books are, for me, one of the simplest and most surefire ways of doing that."

I thought this was excellently said.  A book can touch someone in ways that speaking to them face to face cannot.  It gives them time to absorb, to ponder, to get the real message that is intended.  When we speak to people in person, emotions and body language sometimes convey the wrong meaning.    


That is why writers are so important, and what we write is doubly important.  You can change a whole person's life with your words.  For both good and bad.   You've seen examples of that with the media, especially the press.  


My husband said he heard a reporter quizzing someone about the Whitehouse and how we need to allow the President and his family some privacy.  That's something that has gone by the wayside since the days of Kennedy.  Now-a-days, for example; if Kennedy was having an affair with Marilyn Monroe, it would be all over the tabloids within days, let alone the internet.  Jackie wouldn't have been able to keep a solid front on their family and I think things might have happened a little differently.   Just this week there was a big flap in Europe over a writer who had made some 'racial' slur against the First family in a column about how the Obama's have added to fashion in the African-American scene.


Everyone is watching.  And, everyone is going to have an opinion.  


So whatever you write, I hope you feel it strongly and are willing to stand up for it.  I hope that it's something that is enriching and life changing for those who read it.  You can do it.  We all can.  So tell us -- what books have left a lasting imprint on your life?