The Library
Yesterday I left the library with my arms full of books. I realized how much I love books! And the library! I love that I can walk in looking for one particular book (in this case, one I’d forgotten at home when I left the house in the morning) and end up seeing other books on the shelf that interest me that I wouldn’t have thought of. And because it’s the library I can just grab them without worrying about whether I really need them or not. Then I go and sit with my pile and look through them aimlessly and voraciously (is that a contradiction?). This seems directly opposite to what I wrote in my last newsletter about how I don’t think it’s bad to have both physical books and various forms of e-books—in fact I am really excited by the possibilities brought about with the ipad for different ways books can be, but that it’s all about ideas (or “content” in internet lingo). Still, I always come back to thinking how well designed books actually are. How much easier for me it is to flip through and look at pages than to scroll. And that physical juxtaposition of books (thanks to the Dewey decimal system) that leads to connections one wouldn’t otherwise make.
By the way if you are wondering, the book I left home was Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo. And I grabbed other books on writing that I had been meaning to look at. I can tell you now that I love DeSalvo’s book (writing it up in the next newsletter which I will also post here). Some of the other ones I picked up have also been recommended by students and I look forward to learning more, and letting you know what I find!