A characteristic unique to humans is the amount of time we spend thinking about what isn't happening: the past, the future, or hypothetical situations. This type of thinking, known as mental wanderingMindfulness is considered a key capacity for learning, reasoning, and planning, but various philosophical and religious traditions suggest it can have an emotional cost. Based on this hypothesis, a team from Harvard University analyzed the relationship between mind wandering and emotional well-being in everyday life. Using a mobile app, the researchers, led by MA Killingsworth, collected real-time data from more than two thousand adults, who reported what they were doing, what they were thinking, and how they felt at that moment. The results showed that the mind wanders almost half the time, with little variation depending on the activity, and that happiness levels are lower when thoughts are not focused on the present activity. In other words, when it comes to explaining emotional well-being, what we think about is more decisive than what we are doing, and that a wandering mind, despite its cognitive value, carries a measurable emotional cost.

I have borrowed the title of the book written by the educator Philippe Meirieu to write these reflections on the complexity of introducing children to the world of writing. It is a short book, included in the new Minerva collection published by the Rosa Sensat Teachers' Association, reviving the name of the collection offered at the beginning of the 20th century by the Barcelona Provincial Council and later by the Commonwealth of Catalonia.

Carme Riera (Palma de Mallorca, 1948) is a writer and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Winner of the National Narrative Prize, the Josep Pla Prize, the Crexells Prize, and the Lletra d'Or Prize, among others, she publishes Thank you, a literary memoir of fifty years of writing.

She spent her early childhood in a large house in the center of Palma. "It was very damp. I remember the tiles covered in water, the bed soaked as if you'd stepped into the sea. On the other hand, it had a garden that I loved because you could run around and feel a bit free." The house had three floors. "Each of us had a floor: my parents lived on the ground floor, my grandmother and aunt lived on the first floor, and upstairs, on the third floor, lived my grandfather." My grandfather was quite a character: "He was very funny, he had a gym, a library, he rode his bicycle from 7 in the morning until 2, he swam in the sea whether it was summer or winter, he was quite eccentric."

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In such audiovisual and stressful times, reading has become a singular and almost revolutionary act. It goes against the grain. Reading time is precious, requiring willpower and determination. "Do you have time to read? Gosh! How do you do it?" people ask me. I reply: "Don't you have time to read? Gosh! How do you do it?"

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Dear readers of this column, I hope you had a good summer. Like most of you, I suppose, it seemed short to me. I've also read less than I thought I would, but I did devour one of the books I mentioned in my last article before the holidays: James, of Percival Everett (Ángulo, translated by Jordi Martín Lloret). It is very good to recover it now, as some friends have asked me if I would dedicate this first article to the controversy of the influencer María Pombo for his statements about reading.

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This influencer A Madrid native named María Pombo (she may not be related to the writer Álvaro Pombo) and who has more than three million followers, has said on TikTok: "I think we should start to get over the fact that there are people who don't like to read and that you're no better at making them like to read." The phrase was relevant because she shared a video of her "bookstore" (sic) where there were no books to be seen, as a follower pointed out.

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Printed text has become a hieroglyph for many students. It requires a great deal of concentration for results that are not immediately apparent. They find it a daunting task to keep in mind the general plot while paying attention to the small details.

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Before going on vacation, I thought that, given the variety and multiplicity of reasons for anxiety we all have, it would be a good idea to recommend a series of novels that, in addition to quality, have the virtue of giving us a break, a fun or lighthearted tone, an optimistic view of the world, or a tender story.

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Reading and loving. Sant Jordi could be summed up in these two beautiful words. A holiday celebrated with literature and love, in April, just as the trees begin to bud and the days become decidedly longer, is unbeatable. Sant Jordi is a collective explosion but also personal, a day that has a score that everyone can interpret by introducing their own variations.

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