No matter where one looks in this little house, there are bookcases; tall bookcases reaching toward the ceiling and overflowing with printed material, solitary book shelves tucked in strange places and precariously leaning stacks of books. Finding a particular book when one wants it can be traumatic and usually involves hours of going through all those bookcases, shelves and stacks. Then, when the search is over, one remembers that the book in question was borrowed some time ago, and has not been returned.....
Ongoing efforts to achieve a measure of simplicity and bring some order to my life notwithstanding, the Mission library table at home is a repository for the paraphernalia of daily life, and it usually holds a lot of "stuff" other than books: spare reading glasses, keys, artist sketchbooks, fountain pens, drawing pencils and charcoal, my Nikon camera, a cellular phone, scissors, bus fare and (in season) at least one large umbrella. Two shelves on either side of the library table are crammed full of reference materials to which we refer often, and which take their time finding their way back to their appointed place. There are, of course, several books on the table itself, along with a pair of owl bookends, a scented candle, a Macondi figurine, a statue of the Buddha, a wicker basket for mail, one huge pine cone (which I simply like looking at) and a magnifying glass which conveniently disappears whenever I have need of it. There is no Mission style reading lamp on the library table at present because I haven't found the right one, but the search for the perfect reading lamp is serendipity, and the right lamp will turn up sooner or later.
There are usually several books "on the go" at any given time, and I pick up one or another for an hour or so of quiet reading each evening. The stack of reading material on the library table usually contains a few fictional works of some sort, either mystery or speculative fiction. There is usually one autobiography or biography on the pile, several books on spiritual or contemplative matters, an art book, a history book of some kind and a book on ecology.
At present my stack of reading material contains (in no particular order) the books below. Wherever possible, I have added a link to an informative web page, by or about the author. It should be noted that some of these books are actually "rereads", luminous tales encountered in the past, works which were much loved the first time around and which still have the power to delight and instruct.
I am still looking for a large book case in local second-hand shops, having finally found a place where I can fit one in, but the necessary finances have yet to materialize. The thought of having a new bookcase makes me feel very happy, and I look forward to gathering up the piles of books scattered around the house and shelving them somewhere in an orderly fashion. Suddenly I find myself contemplating the acquisition of all sorts of lovely new books, although the finances for that have yet to materialize too - I keep buying lottery tickets with spare change and hoping. To borrow the words of the Tao Te Ching (Ursula Kroeber LeGuin's transcription), changing them ever so slightly, "Where the shelf is useful is where the shelf is not". All that empty space just waiting to be filled up with new friends......- The Buddha, Karen Armstrong
- The Red Hot Empress, Meredith Blevins
- Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, R.H. Blyth
- Urgent Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, Jean Shinoda Bolen
- Wind Cloud, Martha
Glessing
- The Fruitful Darkness:
Reconnecting With the Body of
the Earth, Joan Halifax
- The Little Locksmith, Katharine Butler Hathaway
- The Lighthouse, P.D. James
- I Opened the Gate Laughing, Mayumi Oda
- Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Cherie Priest
- Ordinarily Sacred, Linda Sexson
- Sweeping Changes, Gary Thorpe
Updated for Litha 2008
