The magic of books

I forget how often I already listened to the audio version of The Song of Achilles, written by Madeline Miller, narrated by Frazer Douglas. Just as I like to re-read certain novels, this audiobook is so far the only one I can listen to, again and again. Rarely have I read, and listened to, a novel as exquisite and touching as this one. Via Audible I got this novel from a friend and I am forever grateful to her for it.


I read Warrior Cats to my son, currently the second book of the second series and that story etches itself into my being in a delicate way. I have to work hard though, to read through the many, many, often awful mistakes in translation, spelling and grammar. As a writer and editor myself I get really worked up about those. The apparitions of Spottedleaf as a guiding spirit get me so emotional, though, that my boy can hear it in my voice - the way I experience our own cats, is intensely relatable. It may also help that I too am spiritually moved, with a love for stars and moon, making moon water and cleansing rituals with sage and salt bowls.

It moves me tremendously to see how my boy loves reading himself. When his mind has enough of Minecraft, he turns to his own books, the very beginning of the Warrior Cats Saga - The Sun Trail - and Holly Webb's Lost in the Snow. He has this thing with reading two or three books at the same time. It gives him structure, it seems.

The wonders of stories translate themselves so often in our everyday lives; the slightest event or word in the newspaper can trigger our imaginations and all too soon we lose ourselves in stories of our own, mostly ridiculous ones, woven with sarcasm and giddiness. And he throws about him words that are beyond his age, many-layered words which he uses in the correct context, the right situation. As he makes his schoolwork, however, he keeps his vocabulary basic, as if embarrassed by the fact that he knows what he knows.

I hope one day he is proud instead of held back by it.