I am deeply fortunate to have grown up in a bookish family, fiendishly so. I usually have about six going at any given time. What you didn't say, but it's part of the thought, is that by reading we also have something to say. Some basis from which to engage in a conversation. I think that is terribly overlooked. We have lost the art of conversation, and part of that is because we simply do not self-educate.

Your comment reminds me of a new friend of mine, an Israeli woman of 75 who married a Black man in Detroit, and her own family is this sprawling mix of everything that is so much an example of who we are as a species. She is remarkable, a fellow athlete, incredibly bright and of course well-read.

These are excellent points. While in Thailand for a month just recently I retreated from the extreme heat of the day to read all afternoon until 7:30 when I fell asleep. I was so grateful to be re-immersed in words, it was like swimming in a sacred bath.