Tasty Books Available

Francis Bacon wrote, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Novels that follow patterns of plot that can be safely predicted are very popular and often fill book series. Readers who enjoy those books like to know what they’re about to experience as soon as they begin the first chapter. The sameness brings them back over and over to repeat exposure to familiar characters who operate within boundaries those readers find comforting. Sometimes the content is a predictable adventure, sometimes a glimpse of idealized family life, sometimes happy romance. Those are the books to be tasted—to be read quickly so the reader can relax, protected from challenge. Those are the books that are written according to pre-determined templates that may be reproducible by AI. Those books aren’t usually banned because they don’t rattle cages. If any are banned, it will be because some few dared to glance at intimacy or profanity or a religion certain people find offensive. Even so, they reiterate only what has been written and approved before. Some opinion pieces pretend to be honest when they’re purely self-gratification that may bear little or no resemblance to honesty. They’re temporarily entertaining.

The books to be swallowed may step up a rung on the ladder of challenge. They may stray into emotions that aren’t easy to forget. They mirror a version of reality as perceived by the author. Most creative writers—whether prose or poetry–aspire to produce works along this shelf. Many of these books have been banned. Actually, most writers dream of producing works that qualify for the highest level, but they don’t yet have the skills to make the magic happen. They do the best they can, because touching the lives of strangers is their calling. They want their readers to laugh and cry and quiver with fear. Writing is a means of reaching out to connect with other hearts and minds, a means of expressing what seems impossible to communicate.

The books that are to be chewed and digested present intellectual and emotional feasts. These books reflect truths that may feel uncomfortable, but they insist on the reader undergoing a transformation by revelation. The readers will emerge from the last page with shadows of what has been witnessed playing across their minds. Some of these books are simply written, some slyly allegorical, some boldly and brutally authentic, but they all echo deep within the consciousness, sometimes so deeply they never disappear. Their authors may approach a form of immortality envied by the less talented. Nearly all these books are regulated in these times because they threaten views that are too small to be accurate. They foment thought.

Anyone who read “the classics” in school would tell you that the magnificence of a book lies in the eyes of the beholder. Some books and poetry we, as students, hated although we had no clear idea of what they were saying for many years thereafter. Our appreciation was tardy. Sometimes the teacher wasn’t able to share the value and resorted to multiple choice tests, instead. Ideas are subjective, after all. And all great books present not merely plots but ideas. The possibility that different readers will discover different realizations is part of the treasure.

Saturday, December 6, 2025, four published writers (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) local to the Trinidad, Colorado, area will come together at 1:00 in the Carnegie Public Library where they’ll be available in person until 3:00 to discuss, read, or sell certain of their works. Only their readers will be able to judge which level those works achieve. We hope you take a chance and come to share with us.