These days I’m in the process of dusting books and cleaning shelves — it’s spring-cleaning time in the library. Along with it arrives this thought: What if I were to lose all three thousand books in a fire, and what if that same fire destroyed our collection of irreplaceable family photographs and other treasured heirlooms and odds and ends? At one time, the thought that followed would have surprised me. […]
It’s much less what I’m reading, than the simple fact that I am reading, that I find remarkable. More than remarkable: holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, and making sense of what’s printed on those pages, is a miracle. How the books I read find their way to me, and come to a temporarily safe harbor within these walls, is a mystery. Though it appears that I’m […]
I finished pruning the fig tree. I don’t know how long it took, but I guess it to be around four hours, which includes cutting the brush into little pieces for the recycling bin. I did the work in three afternoon sessions. During the last session, I heard the sound of a mourning dove in flight, and looked up in time to see it winging its way north. A second […]
It takes time to dust three thousand books, and to clean the shelves, tables, and various perches they’re on — several days, in fact. Not that it couldn’t have all been done in one. But then it would have been a job. And so I admired the bindings, paged through many volumes, and did my best to remember when and where I’d found them and brought them home. Those that […]
Down to every last grumble, every last ache and pain, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing. Every smile, every silence, every sigh; every kindness, every slight — all are mine to choose. So why should I pretend otherwise? Why should I pose? Why should I lie? . Stop saying, “The secret to happiness is . . .” There is no secret, only these nuthatches splashing in the […]
Afternoon. Another day, another used bookstore. Don Quixote: Ozell’s Revision of the Translation by Peter Motteux. Introduction by Herschel Brickell, written in 1930 and revised in 1938. The Modern Library, New York. Contains illustrations. The Poetical Works of Mrs. Felicia Hemans. Prefatory Notice by William Michael Rossetti. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, circa 1900. The Complete Notebooks of Henry James: The Authoritative and Definitive Edition. Edited with introductions […]
Little boy in prayer, I see you playing there. Aye, to pray is to play — what else can I say? . Every night, I sleep on the floor at Grandma’s house. . Dear seagull in the wind, I’m a fish without a fin. . Autumn leaf — a child’s flag in the cold. . The Rambler, Numb. 20. Saturday, May 26, 1750. On affectation and hypocrisy. Such pageantry be […]
This is why I’m glad the roof leak didn’t land on the Swift set: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D.,Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin New York : William Durell and Co. (1812-1813) Nineteen volumes of a twenty-four-volume set,part of the much larger British Classics series These were purchased online June 3, 2015. I don’t remember what I paid for them, but I think it was around sixty or […]
The mail was late yesterday, but among the usual junk was a package containing two books from the Library of America — one being the volume by Henry James mentioned recently, Collected Travel Writings: The Continent; the other a collection of early work by Gertrude Stein, Writings: 1903-1932. And so the stacks grow a little higher and a little deeper. . I slept remarkably well last night, and woke up […]
The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams. —Henry David Thoreau I have a way of attracting books. A visit to the bookstore this morning turned up two enticing volumes, which are now here on my desk. One is a used Library of America edition of travel writing by Henry James: Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America. The book appears to be unread, and is in its […]
William Michaelian 