There are two reasons I write this blog—three, if you count that I don’t write it with dreams of becoming an influencer. I’m much too seasoned for that particular ambition. The first reason is to give myself space to process what I read, to let stories permeate my thoughts and eventually shape my behavior. The second is simpler: to share with the few souls who wander across these words the books I’ve read, the art I’ve seen, and the food I’ve tasted. If just one person acts upon a post, then somewhere in the world, I’ve shared a piece of my life.
This morning, I made my way to a coffee shop, settling in with a Guatemalan pour-over that did not disappoint. I wasn’t there to read something new. I was there to revisit something old—Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey, a novel I finished just over a year ago.
This historical fiction imagines the possible interactions between two Renaissance titans: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. In examining their vastly different personalities, Storey reminds us that at the table of ideas there is room for both the contemplative and the passionate. Given the chance, these two forces—quiet observation and fierce creation—can intersect quite productively. It’s a lesson worth carrying beyond the page.
Too often as readers, we get caught up in the excitement of the next book. We race toward fresh stories like children reaching for new toys, missing the opportunity to spend reflective time with what we’ve already read. Not every book reaches out and asks us to “stay awhile,” but some do. While we might pause to reflect during a reading, there is something deeper and more connective about spending time with a book after the final page.
The great Roman orator Cicero is credited with saying, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” In Oil and Marble, Storey expands on this thought through one of her characters, who poses a riddle suggesting that books are “bodies without souls that teach us how to live and die well.” What a notion—that these collections of paper and ink, lifeless in themselves, can instruct us in the most vital matters of existence.
This thinking calls to mind C.S. Lewis, who observed that we read “to know we are not alone.” It echoes Karen Swallow Prior, who writes that literature shapes our very character, teaching us virtues we might never encounter in our daily routines. Books are not merely entertainment. They are teachers, companions, and sometimes gentle challengers who ask us to become better versions of ourselves.
We live in an age of consumption—next episode, next article, next audiobook queued and ready. But what if we occasionally pumped the brakes? What if we returned to a book that once moved us, not to reread every word, but simply to sit with its memory and ask what it still has to teach?
So here is my invitation: listen to your books before you place them on the shelf—or pull an old favorite back down occasionally. Just as Michelangelo finally heard David crying out from within the marble, waiting to be released, you may feel that gentle tug from a story asking you to tarry a little longer.
If you feel it, honor it. Stay awhile. Let the story finish its work in you.