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I was looking at my recommended reading list, and realized that I could probably go on forever. In fact, I believe I will go on forever, adding to the ranks beautiful books that inspire.
Derek and I were talking about the Pulitzer Prize yesterday as we walked home from campus. He asked what it takes to get the Pulitzer Prize. I said that it goes to an article, book, play, etc. that is "earth shattering", something that changes the way we look at some one, something, some event, because of what was written. For example, Truman, by David McCullough. It looks into the mind of a man who made a decision that, literally, shook the earth. A man who changed the lives of--well everyone. And that book...well, it did the same. Just not quite as literal of a sense.

That made me think, about the extraordinary impact of words, the Power of the Press. And you know, perhaps I could put into my own words how I feel, and I think someday I will. But for now, I'll let a Prophet of the Lord say it for me.

President Gordon B. Hinckley once said,

"It is both relaxing and invigorating to occasionally set aside the worries of life, seek the company of a friendly book and mingle with the great of the earth, counsel with the wise of all time,. ..Youth will delight in the heroic figures of Homer; or more modern, will thrill to the silent courage of Florence Nightingale, on the battlefield...The power of Cicero's oratory may awaken new ambitions in the middle age, or the absurdity of Don Quixote riding mightily against a windmill may make your own pretentiousness seem ridiculous;...From the reading of "good books" there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way. It is not enough to read newspapers....But to become acquainted with real nobility as it walks the pages of history and science and literature is to strengthen character and develop life in its finer meanings."

Amen.