Tag Archives: books

A place where people love their trees and leaves

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Two weekends ago, I visited St. Paul, Minnesota for the first time. I had a wonderful time seeing the sights, including the stunning St. Paul Cathedral and railroad magnate James Hill’s house on Summit Avenue.

Although my husband and I apparently brought the heat of the South with us when we came, there was still a stubborn remnant of what had been a 60-foot pile of snow that the plows built in the Sears parking lot over the winter. The St. Paul Pioneer Press even covered the story of the snow pile in the paper, which is how I knew what I was looking at when we happened to drive by the Sears parking lot later that day. My southern-girl mind can’t quite wrap itself around the idea of snow surviving a 90-degree day. But then, I’m also used to snow being white, not black from road scrapings and other dirt and debris that made up the remnant of St. Paul’s snow.  Continue reading →

"It’s a question of discipline."

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I was at a Borders bookstore yesterday, wandering through what remained of its store closing sale and fighting off the blues as I mourned the loss of a decent chain bookstore and wondered what would happen to all the store’s employees.

I was surprised – because the store was so picked over already – to find a 60th anniversary copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, one of my all-time favorite books, and I simply couldn’t resist bringing it home.

If you haven’t read it, you should. It’ll take you one sitting to get through the whole book, but its messages will stay with you far longer. I don’t really think it’s a children’s book, although that is typically how bookstores categorize it. For those of you who have read it, what do you think: more for children or for those of us who were once children and have perhaps forgotten it? (You gotta read the book’s dedication to get that reference.)  Continue reading →

You can’t do this with your e-reader!

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As promised, I’m continuing this week’s discussion about paper and my love of it, especially when it’s bound together with other paper to form a book. A friend posted an intriguing link to Facebook earlier this week, showing some of the artwork of Brian Dettmer, a book “surgeon.” And I was instantly entranced!

“Webster Two Point Oh” by Brian Dettmer

Eugene’s Blog beautifully highlights these works, and another blogger followed up yesterday with an interview with the surgeon/artist himself – showcasing more of his work. Dettmer takes books (and other media) and carves them into intricate sculptures. You can see a gallery of images at Dettmer’s site, his flickr pages, or the blogs. It’s definitely worth taking time to browse through them.

Looking through his artwork reminded me of a discussion I first had several years ago in a class in grad school (a debate played out over and over in the media). E-readers were a newly-emerging technology at the time, and our professor wanted to know whether we thought printed books would die out because of the new readers. I’m an unapologetic bibliophile, and so the thought of books all converting to electronic form made me panicky then, and still causes a little flutter of concern in me today.  Continue reading →

Words on doors?

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“You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart … You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” – Deuteronomy 6:5-6, 9

Writing on your doorposts
A few weekends ago when my husband and I were in the mountains, we strolled through a little art gallery, and there I saw a stunning mezuzah case. Mezuzot came about to fulfill the requirement in Deuteronomy 6 to write God’s words on a house’s doorposts, and as you might imagine, there are lots of rules about who writes the parchment and where the mezuzah goes. And while the words on the parchment are the truly important part, mezuzah cases come in many different shapes, sizes and styles.

Not being Jewish, I passed up the mezuzah case at the gallery, but I haven’t stopped thinking about that beautiful little case and what it will someday contain. I also keep wondering what words my friends and family might say I would be most likely to write on my doorposts.

There’s a growing trend in home decorating to put up words as art on your walls. You can even stop by your local Target and pick up some stick-on words that’ll go up with ease: big, small, curly or simple, whatever suits your decor. But what words would you choose to put on your doorposts, especially the front door where your friends, family, guests, and even a stray salesman can see? I’m talking about the words that you live by.

What are the words that truly represent what’s most important to you? Now: where will you write them?  Continue reading →

Fig season is a long way off

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My minister, Ned Hill, spoke this last Sunday about his love of figs … and his inability to turn down the offer of some fresh figs from a stranger on a park bench in DC. The two of them conversed for a bit, and then, seemingly out of the blue, the stranger said, “My God, you’re a preacher!” Turns out the stranger was a Rabbi, and he could recognize one of his own kind.

Well, all of this made me crave figs, and we’re still dealing with a frigidly cold winter and the forecast for more of the white stuff coming our way. Dried figs aren’t really going to satisfy the craving, and so I’ll just have to wait patiently and, instead, fill myself up with stories about fig trees from the Bible. Continue reading →