Dr. Holly Ordway – Word on Fire Blog –

If you live, as I do, in a place with cold winters, the arrival of spring feels like something of a liberation. Venturing outside, appreciating the greenness of growing things, feeling the warmth of sunlight on one’s face—it does the body good! Likewise, after a busy work week, the weekend offers a welcome change of pace, and the Sabbath in particular is a much-needed time for the mind and soul to recharge and be refreshed.

The imagination, as much as the body and the mind, also needs refreshment and wholesome leisure, the opportunity to relax and play in healthy and life-giving ways. We need to spend time regularly in wholesome literary environments, where we can be refreshed and invigorated.

Books that provide these reading experiences can be literary holidays and Sabbath days. They can serve as mental palate-cleansers after reading things that (necessarily) deal with the more disagreeable and disturbing aspects of life. They can offer changes of pace that allow us to gain strength for more weighty tomes and topics. But where can we start?

• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• The Barchester Chronicles by Anthony Trollope
• The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera
• The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
• The Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome

Read the full article on WordOnFire.org