Do You Like Sentences?

But there was winter in my heart
and I was looking for the door to summer

Robert Heinlein

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Where My Books Go

All the words that I gather,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm darkened or starry bright.”

W. B. Yeats

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Annie Dillard: In her book The Writing Life (1989),
she tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked
by a student, “Do you think I could be a writer?”

“Well," the writer said, "do you like sentences?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Hemingway "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer." ~from A Letter from Cuba


Salinger: “What I like best is a book that’s at least funny once in a while. . . . What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

“If we address stories as archaeological sites,
and dust through their layers with meticulous care,
we find at some level there is always a doorway.
A dividing point between here and there,
us and them, mundane and magical.
It is at the moments when the doors open,
when things flow between the worlds,
that stories happen.” (2)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow

In Art As It Is In Heaven

"They might, without sacrilege,
have changed the prayer a little and said,
'Thy will be done in art, as it is in heaven.'
How can it be done anywhere else as it is in heaven?"

~ Willa Cather ~
from her novel The Professor's House (p 57)

Two views of
Harold Gilman's House at Letchworth, Hertfordshire (1912)

The house of artist Harold John Wilde Gilman (1876 – 1919)
Painted by Spencer Frederick Gore (1878 – 1914)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recent Reading

1. The Professor's House
by Willa Cather

So many engaging themes in this novel: a lovely old house, a grand new house, a mid-life crisis, sibling rivalry, academic cynicism, beautiful Lake Michigan, bustling Chicago, bureaucratic Washington DC, and of course the wild wild west:

"Wherever humanity has made that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality, is a sacred spot. . . . with no incentive but some natural yearning for order and security. They built themelves into this mesa and humanized it" (199).

"Lillian's prejudices, her divinations about people and art (always instinctive and unexplained, but nearly always right), were the most interesting things in St. Peter's life" (38). [See Hamnet and Mary Rose below.]

2. The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman

This novel has so many fun lines and observations, but for right now, I'll start with this one: "In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I'm putting today in my pocket and I'm off to bed" (88).

"The gang has all gone now. Two cancers and a stroke. We hadn't known that Jersey Boys would be our last trip. You always know when it's your first time, don't you? But you rarely know when it's your final time" (85).
[See Mary Rose, below. See also Tears & Longly.]

As for loved ones who are fading away: "Can he feel it? Does Penny hear her? Have they both already disappeared? Or are they only real for as long as she chooses to believe they're real? Elizabeth clings on a little tighter and holds on to the day for as long as she is able. . . . Everyone has to leave the game. Once you're in, there is no other door but the exit" (148, 369).

The setting is Coopers Chase Retirement Village, where life is neither miserly nor miserable. A refreshing change from the typical cliche that assisted living is to be avoided at all costs, as in . . .

3. Remarkably Brilliant Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt

As occurs so often in books and on TV (and in real life), Tova’s friends personify a pronounced anti-assisted living bias and glorification of adults who are willing to live with their elderly parents. Why is the popular media so keen to guilt anyone who does not jump on the sacrificial bandwagon? (For a delightful exception, see above!)

If you're a fan of SeaWorld and love a good coincidence, this is the novel for you! I kept thinking of George Saunders: "Now a coincidence is all right, life is full of them, but a reader's willingness to ingest one is inversely related to how badly the writer needs one . . . "
~from his essay "The United State of Huck" (201)

Spoiler alert: In spite of myself, I like the way it all came together at the end, except I was sad that Tova moved into a new condo instead of keeping the old homestead for her newfound grandson Cameron.

Teen pregnancy may be on the decline, but not in this novel, with three separate subplots revolving around teen pregnancy! Really? Reminded of some throwback to the 1970’s: Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones and The Girls of Huntington House; and more recently Juno (2007) -- all overly optimistic.

4. Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell

Anne Hathaway's first impressions of William Shakespeare:
"That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she'd ever met. . . . She is rarely wrong. About anything. It's a gift or a curse, depending on who you ask. So if she thinks that about you, there's a possibility it's true" (137).
[See The Professor's House, above; and Mary Rose, below.]

And William loves Anne [referred to in the novel as "Agnès"] because "you see the world as no one else does" (115).

His fascination with her falcon mirrors his enchantment with Anne herself: "It seems extraordinary to him to be in such close proximity to a creature which is so emphatically from another element, from wind or sky or perhaps even myth" (35).

Thinking of deceased children: "How frail . . . is the veil between their world and hers" (108).

5. The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow

29, 31: "It's stupid to think things like that. It just gives you this hollow, achy feeling between your ribs, like you're homesick even though you're already home, and you can't read your magazine anymore because the words are all warped and watery looking. . . . I didn't say anything because then I would cry and everything would be even worse."
[See also: in comments]

Thanks to my friend Katie who knows how to
judge a book by both its contents AND its cover!

6. Winter Street
by Elin Hilderbrand

A fun connection: Mitzi's favorite Christmas ornaments are "a fancy fur-clad shopper and a dapper doorman by Soffieria De Carlini" (35).

Guess what -- I have a couple of them! Before going on our treetop, they were on our wedding cake!

7. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
by Bette Bao Lord

8. Oh William!
by Elizabeth Strout
[See also: in comments]

9. The Time of Green Magic
by Hilary McKay

Another wacky lovable family (like the Cassons & the Conroys). Abi, Max, and Louis -- living in a big magical house, working together as sibs, dealing with family tensions, and facing their fears (remember Indigo?) real and imagined: "Iffen is real!" (182). From whence came the magic? "It came out of books" (229).

10. Mary Rose
by J. M. Barrie

A text of continued surprises, a gentle ghost story, time - travel and loss: ". . . being a ghost is worse than seeing them" (75).

9, 67: "The pictures on her walls in time take on a resemblance to her or hers though they may be meant to represent a waterfall, every present given to her assumes soome characteristic of the donor, and no doubt the necktie she is at present knitting will soon be able to pass as the person for whom it is being knit. It is only delightful ladies at the most agreeale age who have this personal way with their belongings. . . . I have been so occupied all my life with little things -- very pleasant."

32: "I know I'm not clever, but I'm always right."
[See The Professor's House and Hamnet, above.]

47: "Let me tell you . . . there will be a lat time of seeing your baby . . . I mean that he can't always be infantile; but the day after you have seen him for the last time as a baby you will see him for the first time as a little gentleman. Think of that. . . . Don't you think the sad thing is that we seldom know when the last time has come? We could make so much more of it."
[See Thursday Murder Club, above.]

56, 57: "I can see the twilight running across the fields. . . . happiness keeps breaking through."

65, 70: "It is the years. . . . there are worse things than not finding what you are looking for; there is finding them so different from what you had hoped."

11. The House in the Pines
by Ana Reyes

Not to be confused with "Three Pines" or "Twin Peaks." Murder by hypnosis, mesmerism, levitation, and so forth. Somewhere in the woods.

Small Sweet Tangible Things

A Rebirth of Wonder

Children are us, three-to-eight decades ago, before we became so bewildered by the realities of this world that we simply stopped looking at them.

We often count on children to be the court jesters of our lives. They say adorable things and have no idea how funny they are. . . . Yet these are actual human beings. And they are coming to see the world as it really is. Which is an exacting and terrifying experience. . . .

People sometimes . . . approach small children as miniature gurus. They imply that children can tell us the answers to the world's problems if we just get on their level and listen. We hear that children will be the ones to save us from cancer, racism, and global warming.

Of course, this is a lot to ask of them. Especially in a world marked by so much hopelessness and strife. Children will lead us in the next world because, God willing, they will not have been disillusioned by this one yet. They will remind us of a time when the small, sweet tangible things still meant something. They will ask us to go back to that moment when we felt safe.

Sarah Condon
from her book Churchy (121 - 123; see also)

♥♥♥
A real - life example from my grandson:

On Valentine's Day, I picked up Ellie (4) and Aidan (2) from pre - K, and as soon as they got home they were having so much fun looking at everything in their Valentine bags. Aidan was holding up a card, as if he were reading it, and I asked him “what does it say?”

His answer: “It says ‘I love you Aidan.’”

THAT safe!
♥

Getting Through January

Find a sunny spot!

Reading by the Bookshelf ~ Fadeaway Girl, 1915
by Clarence Coles Phillips, 1880 - 1927
Look!
~ Someone filled the dress in! ~

Read to a child!

Mother and Child Reading aka Nursery Rhymes, 1896
by Frederick Warren Freer, 1849 - 1908

Tell some ghost stories!

The Rising Generation ~ Illustration for Rip Van Winkle
by Arthur Rackham, 1867 1939

Scare yourself silly!

Crime Fiction Reader
in Fliegende Blätter magazine March 1933
by Martin Claus, 1892–1975

Find your true calling & live the dream!

Literary Salon: A Reading of Molière, ca 1728
by Jean François de Troy, 1679 - 1752

Stop by the bookstore!

Above & below, postcards from

Powell's City of Books ~ Portland, Oregon

Hello From Portland!

"That bookstore is like a church to me, thought Erikka: words to listen to and think about, music sometimes to push the words towards other and grander meanings, friends to smile at and feel comfortable with, and all of that somehow adding together, making a total feeling that was larger than the good feelings of the separate parts." (29)

from The Daughter of the Moon*
by Gregory Maguire (b. 1954)

More bookstores like churches:
The Last Bookaneer
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
The Little Paris Bookshop

P.S. *Another favorite line from
The Daughter of the Moon

"What's a blue blood?" asked Erikka?
"Someone who comes from a long and distinguished line,"
said Kristina.
"A long and distinguished line of what?" (145)

The Christmas Experts

If you want to know nearly everything
there is to know about the history of Christmas,
these are the books for you.

Stephen Nissenbaum (b 1941)
American scholar & History Professor
Author of The Battle for Christmas

John "Jock" Elliott
Advertising executive & Christmas Collector
Author of Inventing Christmas
January 25, 1921 - October 29, 2005

George D. Meredith
Influential Ad Man & Christmas Collector
Author of When what to my wondering eyes . . .
August 7, 1940 - January 5, 2023

Further reading on
Nissenbaum ~ Elliott & Meredith ~ Facebook

A Closing Note on Christmas Cards

Rutger Bregman: "Typically our social circles number no more than about one hundred and fifty people. Scientists arrived at this limit in the 1990s, when two American researchers asked a group of volunteers to list all the friends and family to whom they sent Christmas cards. The average was sixty - eight households, comprising some one hundred and fifty individuals." (232)

~from Humankind: A Hopeful History

Oddly, it's true! The stats don't lie!
That's exactly how many cards I send!

How to Find Orion

How to find Orion? Get a good star book!
I have had many in my life:
As a Gemini myself (born May 24, 1957), I love seeing The Twins -- Castor and Pollux -- featured on the cover of The Stars. However, it is thanks to Orion -- nearly everyone's favorite constellation! right? -- that I know how to locate The Twins. It seems that in learning the stars, we are taught first about the Big Dipper, then the Little Dipper, but Orion is the one who stays with us over the years.

Back when I was in grade school, these two H. A. Rey constellation books were library favorites of mine. In 1999, I gave new copies to Ben & Sam for Christmas!

H. A. Rey (1898 - 1977) is of course best known for his creation of dear little Curious George, and after that for his accessile explanations of astronomy. Maybe less so for his illustrated book of Christmas Carols, but that's why I'm including it here -- because Christmas is coming and because the title song is about a star!

My mom had an old trusted book of constellations, the one she used to teach us kids: The Stars by Clock and Fist (which I still have).

From my 4th grade reading list, I had What is a Solar System? (not pictured) -- and A Child's Guide to the Stars (shown above, outside & below, inside). These two are still with me, but I seem to remember a third one that I liked even better, perhaps also from the Neosho Pulbic Library: a maroon hardback cover with an etched design of two children looking upward out of a window; and inside, a page about The Magi and their mystical understanding of the night sky. Will I ever find it or see it again?

Thank to my friend Claude
for letting me know about the work of
Martha Evans Martin & Will Tirion

Another one from Ben & Sam's Childhood

"As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,—
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

See Also
on QK: "The Faithful Beauty of the Stars"
on FN: "The Orion Connection"

Halloween Favorites

Pumpkin Moon by Tim Preston
with vivid, startling illustrations by Simon Bartram

Thanks to my friend Katie who knows
that kids' books are for grown-ups too!

Pumpkin Day, Pumpkin Night by Anne Rockwell
with nostalgic, cut - out illustrations by Megan Halsey

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Not forgetting
The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt
and of course Harry Behn's Halloween