I like to savor the depth of enjoyment I have from some books and contrast that strong enjoyment with how easy or hard it is to remember the book. I use the phrase "remember the book" but in this case, I just mean be able to think of the title or recall that I read it and remember something, anything about it.
I got an email from the New Yorker today listing "the best books of 2023". From experience, I expect a list of the best books in the New Yorker to list no books that I have read and no books I will read. Giving up on the New Yorker list because it is just too long to even look at from beginning to end,
I asked myself to bring to mind again some books that made a lasting or a strongly favorable impression on me.
Books that I have satisfied myself reading include Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" and T.H.White's "The Once and Future King". I asked Lynn for examples of books I have read aloud to her that made a strong positive impression. She said I throw questions like that at her when she is thinking of something else and she is not prepared to think about such a question. But she did come up with three recent titles:
The Bell in the Lake - Lars Mytting
The In-Between - Hadley Vlahos, R.N.
The Brain that Changes Itself - Norman Doidge, M.D.
