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Kindling a Great Reading Experience
Did you know that you can purchase the most extraordinary Kindle books for under a dollar? And that you can read them on your laptop or smartphone if you don’t own a Kindle device?
One delightful example of this is “Unexpected Wetness” by our Medium pen pal Brian Lageose, who we love for the richly humorous descriptions of his family members, under which he delivers the most beautiful and sentimental portraits of real human beings who met serious life challenges with grace. This book is available on Kindle for ninety-five cents. It’s a steal.
It was even less expensive for me to buy “Practical Vedanta” by Swami Vivekananda — just nineteen cents!
For those unfamiliar, Vivekananda was a great Indian teacher of Yoga and Vedanta who only lived 39 years, from 1863 to 1902. In the West he is famous for speaking in 1893 at the first Interfaith conference of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago.
However, there is a caveat about this book. There is a difference between writing for a speech and writing for your words to live on paper — to make your meaning understandable to a reader. This is what we mean by literary skill.
Westerners who were present in the 1800s could hear the tone of Vivekananda’s voice. They could follow the undulations and pauses which indicated humor, and…
