Tag Archives: books

Jun28

missing books.

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have you ever forgotten who you lent your book to?
 so excited about it you just had to share it
 remember saying you wanted it back
because you loved it so much
one day you notice
it’s still not back on your shelf
not sure who you lent it to
 ask the possible borrowers
 no one seems to remember it
couple of months pass
a person who you asked
appears with the book
asking you:
‘do you have any idea whose book this is?
i remember someone lent it to me.’
as a fan of both true crime and books  
 this is an interesting turn of events
one you’ve come to expect.
“never lend books, for no one ever returns them;
the only books i have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”
-Anatole France, French author, La Vie Litteraire, 1888
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source credits:
Missing From the Shelf, Michael Salkeld, Published by Geoffrey Bles, 1936, London
The Case of the Missing Books, Ian Sansom, Published by Harper Collins, 2005

Mar24

picture books.

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march is national reading month in the United States

people of all ages are encouraged to celebrate

by daily reading or listening to books

as a way to strengthen knowledge, imagination, and empathy,

and to foster a lifelong love of reading and literature.

 

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‘all really good picture books are written to be read five hundred times.’

-rosemary wells

 

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i have always loved picture books and still collect them.

do you have a favorite?

 

 

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art credit: Grégoire Mabire, watercolor ink illustration

Mar5

the way it happened.

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‘it had come about exactly the way it happened in books.’ 

-agatha christie

 

 

 

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art credit: tom gauld

erma bombeck’s writer’s conference

Jan2

piling up.

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getting new and used books of all kinds for my birthday and christmas gifts in the last couple of months has added to my stacks, and i couldn’t be happier about seeing them grow. these thoughtful gift givers know me so well. 

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‘What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

– Carl Sagan – Cosmos, Part II: The Persistence of Memory, 1980

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image credit: book riot

Oct9

I’m with the banned.

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read.

 don’t stop reading

read every book

in spite of banned books week 

read every week. 

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‘write what should not be forgotten.’

-Isabel Allende, Chilean-American author

 

Interesting note:

“When the Viennese government compiled a Catalogue of Forbidden Books in 1765, so many Austrians used it as a reading guide that the Hapsburg censors were forced to include the Catalogue itself as a forbidden book.”
― Craig Nelson,Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations

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art credit: Alicia Martin, Spain-based artist’s sculptural installation at Casa de America, Madrid 

Apr25

transported.

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walking into the very old west side book shop you never know quite what category will draw you in. this time, I was inspired by the outlaws, lawmen, gunslingers shelf. probably harkens back to my days of watching all the old westerns on Saturday afternoons with my dad.

‘the books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. she went on olden-day sailing ships with joseph conrad, she went to africa with ernest hemingway, and to india with rudyard kipling. she traveled all over the word while sitting in her little room in an english village.

-roald dahl, matilda

Apr10

beach library.

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Situated in Albena, a sprawling Bulgarian resort on the Black Sea coast, Beach Library is the first of its kind in the European Union, and boasts over 6,000 books in more than 15 languages.

A project by German architect Herman Kompernas, the open-air library lies in front of Hotel Kaliakra and houses everything from Bulgarian literature to memoirs and works of fiction. Its 140 white shelves are made from a special material which is resistant to sun and wind, and when it rains, the bookcases are protected by a vinyl cover.

In order to make it easy for people to browse, volumes are arranged by countries, and can be borrowed for free. The only suggestion is to return the material to the library once finished.

Designed to foster reading among tourists during their summer holiday, Albena’s Beach Library is constantly expanding, as guests are encouraged to donate their own books for others to enjoy. Its goal is to provide customers with an enriching cultural exchange experience.

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‘i have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.’

― Jorge Luis Borges

 

In honor of National Library Week (I’ve extended it to International Library Week)

 

 

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Source Credits: Meeroona, Travel Away, Bulgarian Travel News

Mar6

‘great children’s books are wisdom dipped in words and art.’ – Peter H. Reynolds

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The Kind Wolf, by Jozef Wilson

Bunny and Tree, by Balaint Zsako

And So To Bed, by Molly Brett

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in celebration of children’s literature on world book day and every day

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‘children’s books remind us in uncertain times that there is still much we do know.

kindness matters.

laughter is essential.

caring for each other is everything.’ 

-The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Jan22

go to a library.

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whenever and wherever you need a library

look closely

you may find one in the most unlikely of places

whether deep in the woods, alongside a curb,

or myriad other places

they are all around you just waiting to be discovered. 

 

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‘when all else fails, give up and go to a library’

-stephen king

Dec19

who you are.

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so proud of my dear friend

breeda kelly miller

who had an idea 

that grew

into her one-woman play

‘Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home’

performed around the world

and

into a book by the same name

and

at long last

the airing of her play on *PBS this past monday.

where i had the pleasure of watching it on televsion with her

bravo, breeda kelly miller

your family would be so proud of you.

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‘we all have different gifts so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.’

-fred rogers

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Detroit PBS brings live theater back to TV Monday with “Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home.” True stories of an Irish immigrant, brought to life by her Michigan daughter. Join Breeda Miller and me at intermission and after. On TV or online locally at https://www.detroitpbs.org/live-tv/wtvs-hdtv/ — Mon. 12/16, 8:00pm ET