I bought an iPad, much to the disgust of several geeky Toastmasters. I could give you all my clever reasons, like not having to haul a dozen books to Europe, but the bottom line is that I wanted one. The last few days have disappeared into the alluring screen. Like Alice stepping through the looking glass, I have discovered another world at the touch of my fingers.
The first app I downloaded was iBooks, which came with a beautiful rendition of Winnie the Pooh. I'd seen this book before, ordered it for some friends who had a new baby, and thought I'd get it for my grandchildren when they came of age. Maybe I should just order a 'real' copy now? (This could be dangerous.) Fortunately I got sidetracked by the free offerings--all sorts of classics I'd never read. Soon I had a Chesterton, Christie, and Vonnegut sitting on the only empty bookshelf in the house. What happens, I wondered, when I fill up this bookshelf in the new pad? Do the books flip to spine out? Stack on top of each other? Slip onto the floor? Or does another empty bookshelf magically appear?
Remembering that I'd wanted to read more books by Marilynne Robinson, I ticked in her name. (If you do it with one hand, it's not called 'typing'.) The screen kindly suggested the proper spelling. I'd enjoyed reading Gilead, even though several of my friends had found the Pulitzer Prize winning novel confusing and slow. Gilead did not show up in iBooks. However, both Home and Housekeeping lined up on the screen. Gingerly touching the cover of Home, I discovered this book was not available until Dec. 31. Neither was Housekeeping. Odd, I was sure that those two were already out.
The second app I downloaded was Kindle. Right. Both Robinson e-books are currently available from Amazon. The intricacies of e-book contracts and corporate positioning were momentarily fascinating, but I resisted the urge to investigate further.
App-o-stall-ick: When your life stalls as you get lost in the app store.
So far I haven't read a single book on the iPad. The device lends itself to ADD--bopping around from program to program. I downloaded a Bible reader, played with bookmarks and highlighting, trying to figure out how my system of moving four bookmarks along could work. It's lovely to jump from book to book or chapter to chapter at the touch of the finger. But sometimes I'm looking for a passage that I know is in the upper right hand corner of Paul's letters. This Bible has the wrong pagination. I bumped into "wells without water" in 2Peter and thought it might make a nifty title for a poem or essay. Should I highlight the quote or make a note? Bookmark it? What color highlighter...
Which reminds me, the oddest Bible that came into the store this month is in Persian; Farsi, the language of Iran. $15
Somewhere in the course of the weekend, my eyes got so bleary that I returned to real books. A stack of Nicholas Sparks had arrived at the store, and in the process of pricing, I peeked into A Walk to Remember. The high school boy's character sketch of a local pastor caught my interest so I brought the book home for a laze-in-the-sun read. I'd read The Notebook eons ago and appreciated the double plot line of a husband reading their love story to his wife with Alzheimer's. Recently, we'd seen the movie and I had to agree with Katy, who wrote a staff recommendation for The Notebook back when she was in Jr. High: "If you think you don't have to read this because you've seen the movie, you're WRONG!"
I suppose it was the trailer to A Walk to Remember, which came with the movie of The Notebook, that intrigued me enough to open the book. It was a perfect laze-in-the-sun-read, or at least would have been if there had been any sun. Instead I had a relaxing read in the fog. Nicholas Sparks romantic novels could be read by girls from late elementary school on up.
I brought home another kids book: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. This story about a fifth grade runner and the girl who cold beat him, won a Newbery Medal. The nice thing about children's books is that they are usually short on gratuitous sex & violence, and long on love.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either." ~Dick Cavett
Pat, who has introduced me to a number of fine books including the first Harry Potter and Richard Foster's Devotional Classics, wrote me about A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos by Peter France. When she ordered a copy for Joanne, I got in line. This is a true story about an agnostic BBC radio host and his Orthodox wife who fall in love with the Greek island of Patmos and decide to move there. Part travelogue and part spiritual memoir, the book provides charming descriptions of the history, landscape and culture of the island of John the Elder. Towards the end of the book, the author decides to get baptized, even though he still perceives himself as an agnostic and doesn't think he could recite the creed. The Bishop says that the solution is simple: if Peter would trust him, the Bishop would recite the creed for him.
This bit of theology reminds me of an Orthodox saying that someone in the body is always praying--a thought I've found comfort in when, in the middle of some high, holy moment in church, my mind traveled to the possibility of donuts at coffee hour. Another bit that resonates along the same line for me, is what Marc's said in his Family Camp talk: everyone belongs to God--some people just don't know it yet.
Following his Orthodox baptism, Peter France describes a subtle interior shift, a receptivity to grace, that is the best, mini description of an awakened, circumcised heart, I have ever read. (The following chapter, where he attempts to delineate the difference between Roman Catholics, Protestants and Orthodoxy, is pathetic. Skip that one.) A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos is $13 new, cheaper used or on Amazon, and not available in e-format. Ask Joanne if you can borrow hers--when I give it back.
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle
Meanwhile books have been arriving at The Word Shop in such numbers that I put a note on the door asking people to NOT drop off boxes when we aren't open. "Drowning..." We're having a Five Buck Bag sale in August. We'll load up the front display and windows with books. For $5 you can gather a bag of books from any of the designated areas. This is a great opportunity to collect copies of books to give away, or add to a ministry library or... One bag per person. Bring a friend.
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in..." ~Arthur Schopenhauer
FREE time-to-read is available to Word Shop volunteers. How about Wednesday morning or Tuesday afternoon?
Time to paint, write and/or draw can be claimed this August at our Illuminated Journaling Workshop. Drawing makes me slow down and really LOOK at something. The Garden Series will take place at various lovely gardens on Mondays from 11:00 to 12:30 beginning August 9 at my house. The four-week course will cost $25. Now I have good excuse to buy another drawing book to pass around. I have my eye on Claudia Nice's How to See How to Draw; Keys to Realistic Drawing.
"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things." ~Henry Ward Beecher
I gave a speech at Toastmasters: Making It: Mystery & Mastery in the Creative Life. Brian very kindly made a video of the speech and posted it privately on u-tube. I'll send you the link if you want to watch it. It's 9 minutes long.
"Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away." ~Earl Nightingale
Blessings,
Alliee +
(aka Paddington Bear)