Books

“To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you,

and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations –

such is a pleasure beyond measure.”

Kenko Yoshida

I love books.

I love the look of the stack of good reading material on my nightstand.

I know that I have something ready if I have a few minutes to read.

I love the feel of a new hardcover book in my hands as I crack open the cover.

I love the smell of new paper, and the sound it makes as I turn each page.

I totally love the experience.

So much so,

that I’m sure to be the last person on the planet

 to have an iPad to read electronic books.

I don’t care that it will hold 10, 000 books.

I’d miss the ‘real’ book in my hands.

Awhile ago, I thought about books,

and reading,

and choosing to continue reading a book

when it doesn’t grab me quickly.

And I added yet another item to my ‘bucket list’:

Compile a list of ‘great first lines’ of books.

No doubt someone has already done this, but I’d like to do it anyway.

I have no time for any ‘extras’ these days,

but I thought I could start with my own little library.

Before you read further,

it’s important that you know I’m not recommending these books;

I just love their first lines.

1. Each person’s life is lived as a series of conversations.

2. We want life to be less arduous and more delightful.

3. Once it was a road of sorts.

4. The year began with lunch.

5. Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941.

6. Most train robbers ain’t smart, which is a lucky thing for railroads…

7. The writer Goodman Ace once suggested that we create a thirteenth month

between December 31 and Jan 1,

and set it aside as a time

“of reflection to remember things you’ve forgotten that would tidy up your life.

The calendar would read:

‘October, November, December, Remember’.”

8. A little squatty chair with sturdy legs

a braided rug beside the kitchen door…

9. King Wheat!

10. I’m a window cleaner

and I get very attached to the windows I work on.

Just in case you are intrigued by the lines listed above,

I’ve included a coordinating list of titles/authors below:

1. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (Deborah Tannen)

2. a simpler way (Margaret J Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers)

3. A Dance Called America (James Hunter)

4. A Year In Provence (Peter Mayle)

5. The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)

6. Streets of Laredo (Larry McMurtry)

7. Holidays and Celebrations (Betty Jane Wylie)

8. Aunt Hattie’s Place (Edna Jaques)

9. The Canadian 100 (H. Graham Rawlinson and J.L. Granatstein)

10. Simple Pleasures (Robert Taylor, Susannah Seton, and David Greer)

On this stormy, rainy, blowy, snowy, sleety day,

I yearn to sit by the wood stove and crack open a new book.

Which one should I choose?

Ah…so many books…so little time…