Emerson Whispering Sweet Somethings In Einstein's Ear

This was the introductory essay I wrote for Joyread Reflections, what was supposed to be an occassional rumminating on the work & the wonder of encountering the world in story & the story of the world via multitudes of voices over millennia. Sadly I haven't written or posted a new one...well for years. I do have two in the works which I intend to post to Joyread in the next couple weeks. Both of them were recent posts on Joystory. Recent as in this summer anyway.

Again this is a teaser:

For as long as I can remember, I have been defending, explaining or justifying my reading habits to someone. And here I go again. When I was little more than a toddler, I would carry stacks of my picture books with me from room to room. My Dad would ask, Why do you need so many? I couldn't articulate an answer then. All I could do was hug the stack to my chest and shrug. I remember times I would make two or three trips from my room to the living room couch. I would climb onto the couch next to the pile of books and I would lose myself in them for hours. I loved to have several opened at once. Even then I knew the power of letting my books talk to one another. I would introduce Little Red Riding Hood to the Three Little Pigs. I would see The Gingerbread Man off on the yellow brick road. And Goldilocks had great fun with Christopher Robin and Pooh.

I reveled in the sensory pleasure of the physical books as well as in the stories. I loved to caress the pages. The different textures thrilled me. As did the variety of sizes from the size of my three-year-old hand to too big for my lap. To hold a closed book and slowly open it was just like opening a present. And every book had its own smell which rivaled all others for my affections. The only smell I liked better than the smell of a brand new book is that of a just bathed baby.

...continue reading >>>

Yes. It's shameless self-promotion.

Oh and there is one difference between now and the time I wrote this...the two libraries I have been a patron of since then did not impose 40 item limits. In fact they did not impose any limit at all. At Sunnyvale, CA between late 99 mid 01 I was pushing 80 items consistently. Here at Phoenix, OR, I thought I was averaging in that same range but the last time the librarian called my attention to it...I had out 120 items, of which 15 were for my husband and 5 were audio/visual media.