Old Book Smell

I've always loved the smell of secondhand bookstores. Who knew there's actually science behind it?

Smelling Salts

I’ve never fainted from excitement while reading, but I must admit the image fascinates me. A woman was said to have had this response when she read French Renaissance essayist Montaigne's work. I love the possibility that people can experience such strong visceral reactions to what they’re reading that they faint. New ideas are thrilling, and they should energize and excite the writer and the reader. Why don’t we have more excited readers? Maybe it’s because we don’t have more excited writers.  

There are a breathtaking number of possibilities and experiences in front of us each day; yet we often find ourselves thinking the same thoughts, seeing the same things, and responding in the same ways. An excited writer has the power to awaken us to the possibilities, breathe life from the page, and encourage us to live like the bases are loaded—with enthusiasm, intense curiosity, and passion.

As an excited reader and writer, I’m fascinated by ideas and simple concepts under complex surfaces, and I’m always looking for connections between disparate things. Being a student of life is required if our words are going to have the power to shock into truthfulness, help others to see things in different ways, and create a highly reflective surface that shines others’ brilliance back at them.

 
One of my favorite quotations is from Ram Dass, who said, “We're all just walking each other home." What a lovely journey that can be when we’re walking with those who reflect and enhance our brilliance. Don’t forget your smelling salts.

No Gate, No Lock

Read to Grow

"Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow."

~ Lawrence Clark Powell

Forgotten Bookmarks

I opened an old book at a used-book store and a hotel cocktail napkin with a room number printed on it fell out from between its pages. I imagined someone reading a book, being interrupted, and reaching for the nearest thing at hand to mark their place. What story did the napkin tell? I purchased the book solely on the basis of this forgotten bookmark.

Michael Popek runs a used and rare book store in New York. He began to collect the odd things left behind between the pages of the books he bought and sold. He describes them as treasures within treasures, like bits of random ephemera left inside books, often untouched for decades, which leave him with a misplaced sense of nostalgia.

He is the voyeuristic force behind a fascinating book, Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller’s Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages. In it and on his website, he shares his collection, offering a glimpse into other readers’ lives that they never intended for us to see, while withholding the full stories they tell.

I adore finding left-behind mementos in books. And to those who have ever left something behind in one, as well as to Mr. Popek for sharing with us his finds, I am indebted.

Touched By Books

"A library should be like a pair of open arms."   

                                           ~ Roger Rosenblatt

Bricolage

I love the beauty found in castoffs and things discarded. And I’m often compelled to repurpose and find function for mundane and quirky objects that become symbolic of something bigger simply in their arrangement. Anne Morrow Lindbergh understood this: “That had been their fourth time. She put four diamond buttons in an exact row on the windowsill.”

The French call it bricolage: making artful use of objects at hand in a way that instills new meaning or upholds a legacy or story.

I’m especially partial to objects in sets of threes, which is likely tied to my precious relationships with my three children. But what really takes my breath away is when I happen upon a “treasure of three” unexpectedly, either naturally occurring or something placed and forgotten by someone who came this way before. There seems to be a deeper significance than random arrangement would explain.

These kinds of items become sparks of inspiration, reminders of times past, and lovely connections to caring relationships. When I hold them in my hand, they feel relevant and seem to take up more room in my heart than I can explain.

I can think of a million reasons to look for significance and meaning in nature and simplicity, but I need only three.