Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
This is a quote from a Book Group book - "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" which most enjoyed but which also produced some angst amongst others; overall making for a good discussion!
Anyhow, I wrote this quote down for the discussion as I really agreed with the way you pick up a bit here in a book which leads you over there to something else, and then to follow up with that and so on. Books offer a journey of exploration which you don't even know you might want to go on when you begin.
Whether it is fiction, poetry, art, biographies, the author, gardening, cooking - nearly every sort of book offers a connection to something else worth exploring or investigating or checking, either as you go along or once you are finished.
In some ways they are the original internet! Nowadays we hop from one blog to another and can't remember where we began; I think books offer the same opportunity, but in a slightly slower manner and you can usually remember where you began.
I don't think I'll ever lose the habit of having a notebook with me so that as I read something worth following up I jot it down...
Here is a shot of the books in the rainbow stack - indigo to purple. You can tell I choose by colour not title!
oh, these look so luscious, Fiona - amazing collection of found purples xoxoxo
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if these are from your personal library but they look wonderful! And what's more, I haven't read any of them... I wonder what other colours you have? Sara
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful rainbow stack of books. We can't live without books - at least I hope so.
ReplyDeleteExcellent quote, Fiona! It is so true about book leading to book! I used to joke, during my youthful period of intense old novel consumption that all of my reading recommendations came from the dead! It seemed every novel I read contained some reference by the author or the editor that directed me forward and back to the influential and influenced, and then sideways to similar simultaneous texts in other languages and cultures. I would end every tome with a new reading list! I read less nowadays, but the effect happens still. Many thanks for this post!
ReplyDeleteFiona...my sentiments exactly! I did a piece a few years ago...one of the earliest of my "book pages" that mimics an open page of text with embroidered connecting lines going from hither and yon all over the place. The original hypertext! Remember when that term was so popular....I was always of the mind that hypertext had long been part of book culture and didn't come into being in the computer age! Wonderful thoughts you've presented. And I must say, as a long time cataloger, organizing your books by color is absolutely fascinating! Students and faculty at the art school library where I worked often used to ask for help finding a book they were familiar with...by color..."it was red and about 12 inches tall and a couple inches thick..." I used to promote the idea of organizing by color, forget the classification systems!!! I'd LOVE to see more pictures of these books of yours organized by color!
ReplyDeleteCheers!
I love your color coding!!
ReplyDeleteI was so dazzled by the idea of colour-coding my monster library (eeeeeeek I'd never find anything ever again!)that my mind started spinning off in myriad directions...
ReplyDeleteyep books/ideas have a way of doing that to you.... you start one place and end up in a different universe....
Thanks all - I need to explain that the stack is actually an 'art' piece in the house - I am slowly building, adding to a rainbow stack of books- this is the indigo-purple part.
ReplyDeleteRonnie - how hilarious would it be? It would drive me insane and upside down nuts; but oh it would look gorgeous!
Cat & Patti- I am truly into colour coding. When I studies all my subjects were colour coded and had their own coloured manilla folders etc. I also love rainbows...Patti- the page of 'embroidered hypertext' is fabulous!
TT/G - I am the same - every book leads me somewhere - often backwards or sideways and I am always keeping notes of things to followup...fabulous life!
Carol- so right, can't imagine life without books
R/Sara - I haven't read these either - altho I know they are there at a pinch. You can't see it, but the title of the top books is" the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove" what a classic!
N - yes; they sit so beautifully together - I have been lucky with my 'finds'
there is a great photo, of course the menopausal brain can't source it, of an entire used bookstore, rearranged by the employees by color while the owner was out.
ReplyDeletewhile the colors of these spines are lovely, i'll be they are particularly poor reads.
Velma - I love the idea of that photo and those folk rearranging the book store- hilarious! You're right of course; they look good; but I haven't been desperate enough yet to try and read any of them - altho the one mentioned above does kind of tempt me.
ReplyDeleteOne of the joys of books ..... the journey of exploration from book to book. Like you I have notebooks galore filled with jottings from books..... and several books filled with quotations.
ReplyDeleteNow I have notebooks filled with internet jottings which i never have time to return to..... but just in case....
AP/Robyn - books are fabulous for recording those 'things to follow up' bibs and bobs aren't they? I often think I should just call my notebooks books - "things I stumbled across and want to explore more".
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