Book Lovers Day

Today is National Book Lovers Day, and it lands on a Sunday, which is exactly where it belongs.

I want to make the case for the summer reading afternoon — one of the great undervalued pleasures available to a person. A book, a comfortable spot, a few unscheduled hours. No screen. No feed. Just you and someone else’s words, at whatever pace the afternoon wants to go.

Reading is one of the last truly unhurried things we do. You can’t skim your way to the good part of a book you’re loving. You have to be there for all of it, sentence by sentence. In a world that’s constantly speeding you up, a book slows you down on purpose — and the slowing down is half the gift.

Today’s Simple Mission, if you want one: read something. A chapter. An hour. An afternoon if you can swing it. Let a book have you for a while.

A book slows you down on purpose — and the slowing down is half the gift.

What are you reading right now — or what’s been waiting on your shelf for an afternoon like this?