Which Books You Truly Love An Essay by Salman Rushdie www.nytimes.com I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, the beloved tale becomes a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgments and choices in our daily lives. A book may cease to speak to us as we grow older, and our feeling for it will fade. Or we may suddenly, as our lives shape and hopefully increase our understanding, be able to appreciate a book we dismissed earlier; we may suddenly be able to hear its music, to be enraptured by its song. readingloveidentitylife
Focal awareness The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes what she experienced as "being as a thing." The philosopher Michael Polanyi calls it "focal awareness" and recurs to the act of hammering a nail: When we bring down the hammer we do not feel that its handle has struck our palm but that its head has struck the nail. We have become the things on which we are working. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman The inventive process was often a nonverbal oneHe feels the end of the cane identity