Thursday, October 1, 2026
How does what we read every day affect our lives?
Daily newspapers and TV news drown us with torrents of repetitive and sometimes conflicting accounts of events across America and the world. The best of them are stanchions of democracy, and we need these dailies to offer a wide-angle lens, to see what we cannot see from our own front yards.
We need our weeklies to bring us stories about people we know in our communities, a narrower lens that focuses on local events and individuals.
Weeklies are the lifeblood of community life — the pages where our neighbors are hailed as heroes, and school athletes have their moment in the sun.
Newspapers in this country struck their roots in liberty, and until the Trump era, citizens could rely on the accounts of events they read in the paper. Today, with overt threats against freedom of the press and news outlets co-opted by political power players, we need to double down on the demand for honest and unbiased reporting. (It’s useful to note here that my column is by definition an opinion piece, my own views, not the policies of the Herald.)
So we push, push for our free press against an incoming tide of political pressure. We need journalists to challenge the leaders in whom we put our faith and trust. We need the pragmatists and the idealists and the investigators to keep our newspapers relevant and alive.
From my perch, an even greater need is for more people to read books, any books, all books, nothing banned. The impulse to ban a book comes from a place of intolerance and ignorance. No one ever became gay or trans or hypersexual because they read a book on the subject. Book banning comes from a small place, fear of someone different or a way of life that doesn’t conform to the majority.
Why are school libraries being thinned and censored? Why was a reference to Jackie Robinson’s military service temporarily removed from the U.S. Department of State website? Apparently, part of a sweep to remove any references to diversity, equity and inclusion.
How did these values become dirty words?
These days, various media compete for our attention. Teenagers, especially, are vulnerable to the sound and light shows coming from their phones. It’s hard to curl up with a book when the phone gives you games and shocking fake news and social media to keep you jacked up. Parents who used to read to their young children are often distracted themselves by their phones and other devices.
As our political world spirals into confusion and mistrust, and as our president and his minions draw the country in and out of real and threatened violence here and overseas, where can a thinking person turn for comfort? What can help keep us grounded and hopeful as we celebrate our democracy on the Fourth of July?
Escape the political convulsions of this moment and feel buoyed by a character’s life and loves; feel grounded by the universal values humans share.
I’m not sure how you become a reader of books if you never have been, but I do know it’s possible. I know folks in their adulthood who finally found the peace and the time to start reading. It’s comforting, it’s edifying, and the connection between reader and character can be profound.
The books I’m reading this summer fall under the banner of “repairing the world,” which comes from the concept in Judaism to work toward making the world better. John Steinbeck wove the theme of repairing the world into his great novel East of Eden, exploring the tension between free will and destiny in human experience. Gorgeous stuff.
The books on my list are Twist, by Colum McCann, a story about a team of seamen who fix underwater internet cables around the globe; Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch, a novel about a fight against a totalitarian takeover in Ireland; The Return, by Hisham Matar, a man’s search for his father, who was “disappeared” by the Qaddafi regime; and Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, a debut story of summoning strength while moving through grief.
These books explore the boundary places in our lives, the broken places, and offer visions for doing good in a fractured world.
Copyright 2025 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.
