The delight of rereading books

Sometimes I get sad that I'll never have the time to read all the books that I want to read.

Equally, I get sad at the thought of not rereading the books I love.

So when I discovered that it has been 20 years since Eat, Pray, Love came out, I thought it was time for a reread. The new books in my TBR stack can wait.

Twenty years since I walked into a bookstore in Santa Monica, picked it up, read the first chapter, then the next, then next, and finally bought it.

I read it when my friend Ned died, using it to push against (and hide behind) harsh realities of life and death.

I finished it while my niece was learning to walk. Now she's in university.

I read it again in French when I spotted the translation in a bookstore in Paris. I had it kicking around my living room when writing Paris Letters. And on the day my book launched, I was attending Elizabeth Gilbert’s speaking event where I was able to give her my book. I also got her to autograph the French version of Eat, Pray, Love. FUN!

So I am having another go at Eat, Pray, Love... to kind of begin the next 20 years of creative living. Santa Monica... Paris... Canada... where next?

You might groan. Ugh... Eat, Pray, Love... talk about OVER SATURATION. Even she admits that the success of it went a bit far. But it afforded her future time where she could write what she wanted to write without having to worry about cash. That's nice. That's the goal.

That's so much of the creative life.

You make something and sell it in order to buy yourself future time to make something else to sell to do it all again. And you try to do it fast in order to keep rolling in the creativity before the money runs out. It's an interesting dance.

I've been hanging out in Etsy doing just that for over a decade... from big paintings to Paris Letters to painted storefronts. Here is #23 of 100.

(UPDATE: This sold but there are others available on Etsy. Watch the Making-Of videos on Instagram.

This bistro is like a carnival with those striped umbrellas)

I can tell you one thing: Reading books begets writing books.

I can't imagine reading a book without taking notes. It's even hard to believe that people just... read books... like, without a journal and pen nearby.

If you're the type to read and want to write, check out my writing courses. They'll help. They're on sale because I just like the price. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to get some skin in the game so the students actually do the course.

A student recently sent me a book she wrote after taking the courses.The courses came from writing my own books.The book writing came from reading books like Eat, Pray, Love.

Amazing how that happens. The world really is a carnival.