A love letter to books, Tuesdays and literary leaps
Valentine’s Day is approaching and I want to talk about love. That’s what this column is about, after all, loving books and reading.
I love that people still read for pleasure, despite all the distractions. I love audiobooks, especially on long car trips or when I have to paint a room. (And I don’t care what anyone says, listening to audiobooks is reading. To me, the same pictures in my mind pop up when I visualize the story.) And you should read whatever you want. I hate when book snobs come down on different genres or certain authors. Who cares? Other things I love: ■ Paper planners. I follow a digital calendar for appointments, but for everyday tasks and long-term goals, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned planner book. Something about a handwritten list and crossing off each task makes it feel more of a victory. Which leads me to …
■ To-do lists.
■ Other people’s grocery lists left behind in carts, which feel like poems of living. I just found one by a baby shower planner: “baby’s breath, greenery, books or animals — for center piece; ‘Tales of Peter Rabbit;’ colored pens and a box for advice cards.”
■ That my James Joyce “Ulysses” book group has morphed into a “Dubliners” book group and we did a table reading of “The Dead” at the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany.
■ That my alma mater, the University at Albany, hosts the New York State Writers Institute, which just celebrated its 40th anniversary earlier this month.
■ That UAlbany English professor Wendy Raphael Roberts just discovered the earliest known full-length elegy by Phillis Wheatley Peters. According to the university, Wheatley Peters is regarded as the first Black person, enslaved person and one of the first women in America to publish a book of poetry. The elegy, titled “On the Death of Love Rotch,” is dated 1767.
■ The fact that you can buy books at airports and train stations. I picked up another Annie Ernaux book a few weeks ago, a special kind of souvenir.
■ Tuesdays. The day when new books are released. It makes a normally boring day exciting.
■ Friends who send me pictures of books they are reading.
■ That after walking to the library to clear my head and pick up “Janis,” a biography on hold by upstate writer Holly George-Warren, the librarian commented on the gorgeous picture of Janis Joplin on the cover.
■ Randomly scanning the new books there and finding “David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational Sculptor,” by Michael Brenson, a former Bard professor. Smith’s studio was in Bolton Landing.
■ Free review books. I’d be lying if I said review copies aren’t one of the best perks of this gig. Just got a book from Melville Books titled “Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time,” by Sheila Liming. Pretty delightful receiving that in the mail and looking forward to hanging out more with friends and family this year IRL.
■ Collecting antique Valentines and selecting new ones for my family, but my best Valentines are the ones my kids used to make me.