“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain

I’ve delighted in a series of great books this year. I wonder what my top ten will be when the year is over, mostly because I keep working to up the ante with another great book after finishing the special one that resonated most recently. Momentum in reading, as in life, is built incrementally. We know it when we experience it.

I have several books I’ve been meaning to get to this year. Some are new to me, some are old favorites that will read differently as I’ve changed. I’m one of those people who don’t “count” the books I reread the same way as I count new to me books. It’s like the number of “friends” we might have on social media; the total means everything to some people and nothing much at all to others. How many true friends can one person have? The only score that matters is what we experience when we’re together. May we each measure up in that moment.

Some books, as with some friends, are better than others. What we immerse ourselves in means everything. Some books we love we can only read once. Some we choose to read again and again, finding nuance and meaning missed or forgotten in previous encounters with the page. So it is with the inner circle with whom we spend our lives.

Our ideal life unfolds before us, like any great story. What seems ordinary when it’s happening turns into something life-changing as we turn the pages day-to-day. I think about the first time I met a few people in my life who changed me profoundly in later chapters. If we’re lucky, we each have one or two life-long friends in our lives who make life ideal, but we also have those people who meant something in a moment who stay with us in our memories for the rest of our days. Their voices play in our minds like a Favorites playlist.