Exercise is not just for the biceps

Thanks for visiting today. Here in Penticton it is green outside because of the rain – the fruit trees and the grapes would dance if they could. Today my post is about reading books to exercise brain cells and two books I just read recently; they are connected. – David

Exercise is not just for the biceps

Netflix, Facebook, text messages, Instagram, tv series etc are all fine entertainment but I am also a believer that our brains need more.

When I was taking courses at university or technical college I was exercising my gray cells. Then during my career I was also learning new ideas and policies (very taxing it was!) as I was always testing and improving my knowledge.

Now that I spend so much time using a computer, and my smart phone is used more for it’s computer capacity than it’s ability to make phone calls I feel that an extra effort is needed to ensure my brain is not “coasting”, which is a downhill action !

Fortunately I had parents who instilled into me the love of reading. I began when I was young and cute reading comic books. Now I buy books and borrow books from the Public Library (which I encourage everyone to do). Thanks to computer access I can pick my books in advance, reserve them and the library emails me when my books are ready to pick up; and reminds me also when they are due back!

Another way to keep your brain fresh is by studying a different language every day for 30 minutes or so. A few years ago I studied Turkish for awhile, switched to German and now I am on a 280 day streak of studying Spanish (Espanol) ♥ Me gusta estudio espanol y a veces yo hablo espanol.

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Today I would like to share feedback of two of my recent reads.

the Book Shop

I hope you can find this book “The Bookshop” – quick read, only 123 pages, and charming engaging characters. It was printed back in 1997 and I found and borrowed it from my library. The story takes place in 1959 in a seaside town in England named Hardborough. Florence Green, a widow, decides to use her small inheritance to open a bookshop because there isn’t one. She buys the “old house” which has a leaking roof, a flooding cellar and possibly a ghost.

In 1959 Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not. This was because of her worries as to whether to purchase a small property, the Old House, with its own warehouse on the foreshore, and to open the only bookshop in Hardborough. The uncertainty probably kept her awake. She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much. Florence felt that if she hadn’t slept at all – and people often say this when they mean nothing of the kind – she must have kept awake by thinking of the heron.

– Chapter 1, opening paragraph “The bookshop”

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I read “The Bookshop” because I read “Paris Never Leaves You” and that story takes place in a bookshop in Paris bookstore during the occupation of Paris during World War II. Also an interesting book fights for her life to survive but can she survive the next chapter of her life?

An interview of the author Ellen Feldman is at the end of “Paris Never Leaves You” and she mentioned and recommended “The Bookshop” hence my reading that book by Penelope Fitzgerald.

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Enjoy your day, and I appreciate your visit. ♥