And so it arrived. It is a coveted book; one in which I've been interested for a very long time. I found it in my mailbox this evening; a padded envelope clearly containing a book. I had almost forgotten. I ripped open the envelope while still parked at the curb in front of my mailbox, and slid the book out. I ran my hand across the jacket, then furled open the pages. The seller was honest, the book was in very good condition; tenderly used. I waited a long time to buy it, but only paid about forty-two dollars for it. Not as expensive as the other books I have been covetously eyeing while searching for a signed copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Books. I carried a heavy one, Richard Russo's Everybody's Fool, to a doctor's office yesterday. As he took it out of my hands, I felt a pang of guilt. Is it still ok to buy real books? It is one of the investments that I have always felt important. It's the product of the 'company' I feel it is vitally important to support: writers. I am glad there are libraries for children and adults who cannot afford to purchase the books they want to read. But for the rest of us, supporting your reading habit means supporting the writers and publishers! Afterwards, donate your purchased books to libraries. It's a win-win. I have invested in a lot of books over the years. I come by it rightly as my dad was a voracious reader, though mostly of non-fiction books. His interests ran along archaeology and history. Mom and I were both English majors, but I was dismayed to find that in her later years she was reading a lot of cat books. More specifically, a series she referred to as The Cat Who books. I shouldn't scoff. I read Watership Down on my honeymoon so very many years back.
Mom also collected cookbooks; mostly purchased on her travels or given to her by my dad. He took a great deal of time choosing the cookbook that he gave her every year for Christmas. While the rest of the gifts sat under the tree, Mom and Dad always shared the rare drink at home, after church services wrapped at midnight on Christmas Eve. Dad would have Mom open her dad-wrapped cookbook. I recently purchased a tall, standing book shelf for my dining room to contain Mom's cookbooks -- and mine, as I too began collecting early in my adult life. There are 217 of them; sorted and filed by author; frequency of use; ethnicity and region.
The book that arrived this week is The Best of Stillmeadow, A Treasury of Country Living by Gladys Taber. I first learned of Gladys Taber back in the '80s, when I began collecting Susan Branch's books. It was the era of Martha Stewart, and I preferred Susan Branch's books about cooking and entertaining to Martha's, because Branch's books didn't make you feel stupid for not raising your own goats, forcing your own forsythia, or whatever... Branch uses quotations in her books and most were familiar to me... except for Gladys Taber. Gladys who?, I thought (a variation on the Cat Who theme...).
In Susan Branch's 3-book memoir, she wrote about finding a Gladys Taber book amongst the books she acquired when she purchased her small cottage on Martha's Vineyard. And so it began. My book is now bookmarked at fifty-nine pages. I am juggling it with the Russo novel which I have not yet finished. Not good at that. Even as an English major with five upper-division literature classes, I could not easily go back and forth between reading material. One weekend, for a course in Mark Twain, I read Tom Sawyer on Saturday; Huck Finn on Sunday. A lot accomplished, although I was speaking in southern dialect by Monday.
Life being what it is, or rather, my life being where it is, it is important to relish these things with meaning: Joel; friends (always friends); salsa dancing; books; music; cherished films to watch over and over. Dodgers baseball; Live from Here (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion), which I delight to find is quite good with its new host; L.A. Opera with training wheels. And more, and more, and more. But right now, Stillmeadow sits on my coffee table waiting for me to turn its pages carefully, preserving its value for whoever next may hold it and run their hand across its jacket, some years down the road. A treasured friend eventually passed on to kindred spirit...
Books. I carried a heavy one, Richard Russo's Everybody's Fool, to a doctor's office yesterday. As he took it out of my hands, I felt a pang of guilt. Is it still ok to buy real books? It is one of the investments that I have always felt important. It's the product of the 'company' I feel it is vitally important to support: writers. I am glad there are libraries for children and adults who cannot afford to purchase the books they want to read. But for the rest of us, supporting your reading habit means supporting the writers and publishers! Afterwards, donate your purchased books to libraries. It's a win-win. I have invested in a lot of books over the years. I come by it rightly as my dad was a voracious reader, though mostly of non-fiction books. His interests ran along archaeology and history. Mom and I were both English majors, but I was dismayed to find that in her later years she was reading a lot of cat books. More specifically, a series she referred to as The Cat Who books. I shouldn't scoff. I read Watership Down on my honeymoon so very many years back.
Mom also collected cookbooks; mostly purchased on her travels or given to her by my dad. He took a great deal of time choosing the cookbook that he gave her every year for Christmas. While the rest of the gifts sat under the tree, Mom and Dad always shared the rare drink at home, after church services wrapped at midnight on Christmas Eve. Dad would have Mom open her dad-wrapped cookbook. I recently purchased a tall, standing book shelf for my dining room to contain Mom's cookbooks -- and mine, as I too began collecting early in my adult life. There are 217 of them; sorted and filed by author; frequency of use; ethnicity and region.
The book that arrived this week is The Best of Stillmeadow, A Treasury of Country Living by Gladys Taber. I first learned of Gladys Taber back in the '80s, when I began collecting Susan Branch's books. It was the era of Martha Stewart, and I preferred Susan Branch's books about cooking and entertaining to Martha's, because Branch's books didn't make you feel stupid for not raising your own goats, forcing your own forsythia, or whatever... Branch uses quotations in her books and most were familiar to me... except for Gladys Taber. Gladys who?, I thought (a variation on the Cat Who theme...).
In Susan Branch's 3-book memoir, she wrote about finding a Gladys Taber book amongst the books she acquired when she purchased her small cottage on Martha's Vineyard. And so it began. My book is now bookmarked at fifty-nine pages. I am juggling it with the Russo novel which I have not yet finished. Not good at that. Even as an English major with five upper-division literature classes, I could not easily go back and forth between reading material. One weekend, for a course in Mark Twain, I read Tom Sawyer on Saturday; Huck Finn on Sunday. A lot accomplished, although I was speaking in southern dialect by Monday.
Life being what it is, or rather, my life being where it is, it is important to relish these things with meaning: Joel; friends (always friends); salsa dancing; books; music; cherished films to watch over and over. Dodgers baseball; Live from Here (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion), which I delight to find is quite good with its new host; L.A. Opera with training wheels. And more, and more, and more. But right now, Stillmeadow sits on my coffee table waiting for me to turn its pages carefully, preserving its value for whoever next may hold it and run their hand across its jacket, some years down the road. A treasured friend eventually passed on to kindred spirit...
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