Good morning. It's Wednesday, July 22, and nearly six months have passed since the start of the coronavirus crisis.
Today's message is an encore of a Lesley Hazleton's message originally posted in the first week of April, just a few weeks into this nightmare. We're reposting it this morning because:
• She's the *special guest* at the Silent Reading Party tonight.
• She's a genius.
• It's one of the best Messages to the City we've run.
Lesley is an author, essayist, journalist, biographer, psychologist, and TED talker who lives in a houseboat on Lake Union.
She recommends a variety of different books in this message, any of which you could bring to reading party tonight. Or, you could bring one of Lesley's books.
They include Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, a biography of Muhammad called The First Muslim, a book on the epic story of the Shia-Sunni split called After the Prophet, a book called Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen, and Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother.
If you've watched the video and you're wondering if the ducklings ever hatched...
Thanks again, Lesley, for this fabulously sculpted and deeply calming message.
Can't wait to see you the party tonight—reading, chainsmoking, and being fabulous.
Everyone else: you're invited.
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Previously in this series: