Reading up

A well written article is the literary equivalent of a five-star gastronomic delight, where each flavourful phrase is rolled around the mouth and savoured to the full. There is a pleasant satisfaction at the end, unlike the hollowness left by the rushed devouring of a big-mac type article hastily swallowed from the pages of some cheap tabloid. Your brain, wit, and command of English have been fully engaged in thoughtful deliberation and you have been enriched by ideas and vocabulary that roll off the tongue like dark, velveteen, chocolate. Ah, the sheer pleasure.

There are good books, and then there are masterpieces with favourite paragraphs that simply demand to be re-read from well-thumbed pages handled with the reverence due to a sacred icon.

Which begs the question, what are you reading at the moment? I am going back over John Maxwell’s ‘Today Matters’, as well as enjoying the thought provoking articles in a ‘Best Life’ magazine. It’s not just about what you read, but why you read. If for pleasure then enjoy any book, if to learn then I don’t recommend sticking with fiction. One of the articles dealt with the effect of muscle bulk and the aging process and has encouraged me to do a bit more research through the scientific literature on the topic, not just for my own benefit, but for that of my patients.