Stuff for people who are still a bit untamed, young at heart and full of dreams.

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Bookworms

I spent this morning tidying up, dusting and dreaming of being able to wield a magic wand. No, not for the dust. I would love to expand the size of our living room. Or rather, I would love to add a library to our house. A bit like in Harry Potter, where a tent seen from the outside is pretty small but once you enter it, it is a big palazzo. No doubt, having these skills would help with the overflowing book shelves and the invasion of literature into every single space of the house.


No, don't say it! I know, I could get more books stored in an e-reader than I would be able to read in my whole life. But there is something about the feel of a book, its weight and smell. Not to speak about the atmosphere within walls full of books. No, and I don't like the other solution either. I'm aware that second hand shops and antiquarians like books. But I have a hard time parting with my volumes. With many sighs and groans I have started carrying books. which I'm not going to read a second time, to our local charity shop. Only, I hand six in, peruse their shelves and bring eight new "old" books home. Somehow the maths involved does not create space on my shelves!  And yes, I tried the library too! I regularly have to pay fines for keeping books too long. And I only keep them so long because I like to re-read them, and then I miss the deadline. It seems also, that I am a very possessive person when it comes to books. When I like a book, I want to own it.

This home library seems to be the way to go. Although, I would want a comfortable couch and a writing desk too. After all, even the nicest scented water gets cold with time. Or is that bathtub heatable? Anyway, I want a choice and additionally a stunning view (all right, I got that one already!)



It seems that, when properly maintained, the reading bug can be handed down to one's offspring, because my son's walls are dressed in book shelves which overflow just as spectacularly as mine.

Figures say that young people don't read anymore. I'm lucky to know quite a few very young people who love to read. Sometimes I wonder what it is that set's the reading bug free. I only know the approach we had in our family. As far as I can remember, there have always been books in our house. My mother was as keen a reader as I am nowadays. I was always allowed to borrow her books. And of course, even when money was tight, the one thing I always got for my birthday or Christmas, was books.  Story telling was a part of it too. I don't think, I ever went to bed as a child without someone telling me a story or reading to me from a book. No wonder I got curious about those picture books, paperbacks and table top volumes! Reading just came to me like a virus which I could never get rid of. I used the same methods of contamination on my own child, and hooray! It worked. There was only a year or two at the begin of his puberty when books were less interesting than his X-box. But that passed rather quickly.

Someone, who reminds me very much of myself at the age of 15, is a young friend I have in Michigan. She lives with Shakespeare, Wilde and Poe at the time. I'm sure Dickens makes an appearance as well, and her greatest dream would be to have them all gathered around the table for a literary evening. At the same age, I had an obsession with dead and alive Russians, and I would have died for an evening with Gorky, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Lermontov, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn. Seeing that there are still kids around who love literature and are not afraid to bite the bullet and read a piece of writing that does not consist of three- word-sentences, swearwords and cartoon language, is a great pleasure.

And because, I love to make treasuries on etsy, I decided to make one especially for my friend Kaila:





5 comments:

  1. Hi, i popped over from Etsy, oohhh im so envious of all your books. A house doesn't feel like home to me until it is filled with them. You can never have enough and I mean " real" books, to touch and smell and see ;) My children are all avid readers & for that im ever grateful, I think being surrounded by books as they grew up helped that to happen! Happy reading ;) ruthie

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    1. Thank you! Glad to know, there are more book-o-maniacs like me! Fancy signing up for the blog? This months give-away is a sea glass pendant with Swarovski crystals. Do you have a shop on etsy?

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  2. OOh yes please i will. my etsy is www.etsy.com/shop/MythWeaver, and my blog is www.5preciousthings.blogspot.com. Do you have snow up there ?

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  3. No, unfortunately not. Just on the hills. We were all sort of looking forward to do some sledging and having a belated Christmas feeling, but the snow never really set. So we're putting up with the typical west of Scotland wet and windy weather, albeit it's a bit colder than usual. Wolly socks, wristwarmers and breaks for tea and jumping up and down in the workshop! I found your etsy shop by the way. Love the moon hares. They are so beautiful. (We have a lot of the living ones around our house, they are so graceful!)

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  4. That's a shame, i really didn't think we would get any, then it all came down on one night! I have so many layers on in here in my studio i look like an abominable snowman lol. Thank u for lovely words re Moon Hare, i do so love hares. I love your work to, such wonderful colour combinations ;)

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