A book is a uniquely portable world, a glimpse into another’s mind, another life, another time. Voltaire captured the beauty in reading when he proclaimed, “Let us read and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” Human beings currently live in a time of infinite books. This sentence does not mean that there are an infinite number of books, just like there are infinite numbers. It means that during your lifetime, there is no hope of reading all books ever written; it is not a privilege that we mere mortals have. With the limited time spent on earth, you are forced to choose. To search through the endless line of tightly bound pages and select the story that will become part of yourself.
Often, it seems that students either politely or violently resist the notion of reading, leaving many people who have not had the privilege or chance to curate their selection process. This leaves them lost in a sea of words, unable to determine where to begin. When life is filled with semester tests, personal relationships, cheap meals, and early lectures, the thought of finding the right book may cause even more exhaustion. A sailboat and a compass can go a long way in helping you navigate the chaptered seas. This is a basic compass for those who had the New Year’s resolution to start reading more, those who look back on opportunities not taken, and those who want to begin but do not know how. These recommendations are not books of objective perfection. Not all will be intellectual classics, as most people these days do not really care much for the classics. These are personal favourites gathered through years of reading, the books that one compass has found and placed in the sailboat. The journey begins with a young prince and a rose.
The Little Prince
The Little Prince is a 106-page novella filled with wise lessons and illustrations that are beautiful because of their simplicity. The novella is written and illustrated by French writer and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who fled France to live in New York City during World War II. For a children’s book, The Little Prince carries profound messages about adulthood and the strangeness of grown-ups.
The narrator, a fighter pilot whose plane crash-landed in the Sahara Desert, goes through a spectacular shift in perspectives and views upon meeting a little prince from an asteroid lightyears away. During their time together, the narrator learns of the little prince’s departure from his small asteroid after a terrible argument with the one he loves. The little prince recounts his journey, moving between asteroids containing their own peculiar adults, each one leaving him more baffled and confused. Somewhere out in space is an asteroid with a King, ruling all yet ruling none. Another is inhabited by a single man and his fancy hat, waiting to be adored. The little prince has also encountered a strange adult who owns the stars and the one who blindly follows nonsensical demands. Each is moreconcerning than the last. When the little prince arrives on earth, he is surprised by the human-lessness of the desert. During his time on earth, he encounters animals and plants that embody the meanings behind nature, relationships and longing.
The Little Prince, written in 1943, contains stories and lessons that everyone should be reminded of as frequently as possible. For this reason, it is the first book to be recommended to students, these fascinating new adults. It is easy to become an adult and lose that sense of curiosity and creativity innate in children. How quickly you shrug off the idea of reading, dancing alone in a room, lying outside on the grass, all in the name of becoming an adult. It is often said that there is no time – no time to wander, no time to laugh or be curious. There is no time to do anything other than be a responsible adult and pass all the modules and tests that come in one after the other. There is no time for anything other than the sensible, the career, and the stable home. No time to be yourself when you are focused on the approval of others. This has become the mantra of adults: there is no time.
But there is time. There is all the time that you have in your life, which is not much time, but it is enough. There is time to read the unprescribed, there is time to be swept away in curiosity, there is time to hug your parents, and there is time to play with your pet. The Little Prince reveals the absurdity underlying most adult concerns, but most importantly, it is a reminder that there is time.In the hopes of convincing many to enter this sailboat, it is worth mentioning that this book (which is out of copyright) has already been placed on your seat in the form of a free PDF that can be found with a quick search: “The Little Prince book PDF.”
