(Divine Diptych collaboration between Elle Moss and Marico Fayre)

It has been almost a year to the day since I first discovered the work of Anne Fadiman via this slim volume of book-related essays, a recommendation in one of Nick Hornby’s excellent Believer Magazine essay collections. Given my predilection for cyclical reading, it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that, without consciously doing so, I found myself desiring to read this again during this time of year.

Having closed the page on the same library-borrowed copy of the book, I found myself thinking a great deal about why I am so drawn to Fadiman’s thoughts on the pleasures of being a book lover. It certainly is not because we agree on everything, because we do not, nor is it because of a shared intelligence, because I humbly consider Anne Fadiman in an entirely different intellectual stratosphere than the one that I occupy. I believe it is because Anne Fadiman makes me want to be a better reader. Not in the sense of reading better books, but in the sense of encouraging me to be more cognizant of all the many pleasures of being a bibliophile and to savor those pleasures.

Reading her essays also makes me long for many more bookshelves in my modest home.

Continue reading Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader ~Anne Fadiman →

(Once Upon a Time, image by Anne-Julie Aubry)

Hello All! As sad as it is to admit it, it has been a week since my last post!

And I’ve missed you!

It has been a week of spring yard work, collecting a wicked case of poison ivy (the gift that keeps on giving), and being really busy at work—-a good kind of busy though, nothing to complain about.

Other than my romance with a bottle of Caladryl, I have been eyeball deep into Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, and more than any other book EVER I can barely resist underlining and writing all over it! I’ve resisted thus far, but there is a lot of book yet to read! Who is Seth Godin? Among other things, I will be posting about that soon as I have read two of his smaller books that I can’t wait to tell you about.

And, the next time you see the above image, it will be attached to a giveaway of some of Anne-Julie Aubry’s newest creations, all very fitting for the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

I wish everyone the very best of weekends and will bombard you with posts very soon! April is just about over, get some poetry in before it is too late! 🙂