Well Said: Defending Patience and Solitude in Reading

Over the course of a year or so, the slow process of reading these fifty great books, and the other two, gave me back my life. The actions I describe here, inspired by a particular volume or a passage of writing, were often the result of chatting with no one except myself. ... And therefore, as you read this book, please consider it a passionate defense of those two elements I consider most at risk from our neophiliac desire to read fashionably, publicly, ever more excitedly: patience and solitude.

Andy Miller, The Year of Reading Dangerously

This made me think and greatly inspired my Lenten fasting from GoodReads, Facebook, and other such places. Such a fast proved surprisingly difficult at the beginning but as it has continued I find I miss them less and less. And it makes me concentrate such comments as I do have in the place where my online presence began ... right here. Which feels right.