Very quick read, indeed.

Reason why I love my library #50715

This counts as a book, right?

What to say about a book like this? I am glad to have read it, although it took me about 20 minutes, since it is a well thought speech.  Which is why I was able to get it from my library rather than having spent money on buying it.  That being said, the funds go to a worthwhile charity, so it is a positive thing... having read it in 20 minutes, you catch my drift.

There are some great quotes here, and some stuff she really nails on the head.  I can't remember any of the speeches from my university graduations, but I do remember watching the one at work when Sarah McLaughlin played the piano... that was magical.

Reading this, I like Rowling more. Reading this as B and I approach the last 300 pages of the Deadly Hallows makes me wish there were more HP books to read.  When I am back on a crime fiction kick, I will go back to her other books.. I am just not currently in that head space.  For some crazy reason, fantasy seems to be the alley I have found myself in.  A little Narnia, a little HP, a lot of the Magicians trilogy, and will be trying a book called "The Name of the Wind".  Add in Outlander and Game of Thrones, and crime fiction is not where I am at by any stretch of the imagination. For a quick read that you can chew on, definitely worth the time, especially if you have a borrowed copy.

Some random quotes from the book:

Rowling - Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.  Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Rowling - Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the found of all invention and innovation; it is arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Plutarch - What we achieve inwardly will change outward reality

Rowling - We touch other people's loves simply by existing

Rowling - We do not need magic to transform our world; we carry al the power we need inside ourselves already:  we have the power to imagine better

Seneca - As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters