I have so many good books on my nightstand I can hardly bear going to sleep. 

You know, if you've read this blog for more than a week, how much I admire Wendell Berry.  I have two new book of essays and I love to read them wherever they fall open. 

Love is never abstract.
It does not adhere to the universe or the planet
or the nation or the institution or the profession,
but to the singular sparrows of the street,
the lilies of the field,
"the least of these my brethren."
Love is not, by its own desire, heroic.
It is heroic only when compelled to be.
It exists by its willingness to be anonymous, humble, and unrewarded.
~ from "Word and Flesh"

Another author in my top five favorites is Neil Postman.  The Disappearance of Childhood is teeter-tottering in my pile of books.  Some quotes such as "Reading is, in a phrase, an antisocial act." need a bit more background to be appreciated.  My antipathy to television needs no bolstering, but you can't blame me for chortling a bit over this Reginald Damerall quote on how television erodes the dividing point between childhood and adulthood:

"No child or adult becomes better at watching television
by doing more of it.
What skills are required are so elemental
that we have yet to hear of a television viewing disability."

I'm revisiting a book that had a powerful impact on me thirteen years ago: Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman.  It is curious to re-read the book at a little more emotional distance.  I asked my husband to read the introduction and the first chapter in order to understand me better.  While he believes Wendell Berry is a better grief counselor, Curt appreciated this:

"How do I keep my mother's death from being a lifelong lesson?
How do I keep it an isolated incident,
something so overarching, so devastating,
so pervasive in my life still?
How do I keep from being crippled by it?"
The answer, I believe--if there is such a thing
as a concise answer to such questions--
is to slowly learn to live with the loss and not under it,
to let it become a companion
rather than a guide.

Helene Hanff is kick-in-the-butt fun to read. 84, Charing Cross Road is high on my list of lifetime favorites.  She uses a strange and intriguing convention in Apple of My Eye, a book about New York City.  The entire book is a diary about a book she *plans* on writing.  Her friend  Patsy is forever commenting, "Put that in the book."  Her humor is irrepressible, her writing wonderful.  She is one of those friends who is a walking encyclopedia, able to give you a two minute synopsis of the history of anything.  Thanks to Hanff, I'm am SO ready to visit the Big Apple.  The Cloisters, a collection of twelth and thirteenth century buildings, torn down and reconstructed in NYC, is now on my "must see" list.  I had never heard of it before this week.  Anybody been?

Then you look out,
and the splendor of the city
smites you all over again
with "astonishment of the heart,"
as it says in the Bible.

Finally, I am snuggling into Donald Hall's memoir of his childhood summers with his grandparents in Maine, String Too Short to Be Saved.  I have to finish this so others (who are not yet aware that their earthly happiness depends upon reading this book) can begin.  When our kids were all together last weekend, we spent an evening reading sections of Aunt Doris' memoirs aloud.  Whenever it sparked a memory, Grandpa filled in his own memories.  Stuff like his Grandpa who died in a field, sitting next to his tractor. My kids heard about the fine art of burning a page of the catalog and throwing it into the outhouse hole before you did your business so the seat was warm.  This book reminded me of that evening.

The idea of their [Donald's grandparents] mortality
was never far from the surface of my day,
for a flush or a sigh or a hand pressed to the heart
brought death to me,
as if I had heard someone say the word.
It was a pack on my back,
and I would feel the sharp, physical pain
of their approach to dying,
something becoming nothing--or
was it my own approach to bereavement
that made my side ache?

The purpose is blatantly to supplant the joy and beauty of health with cosmetics, clothes, cars, and ready-made desserts.  There is clearly too narrow a limit on how much money can be made from health, but the profitability of disease--especially disease of spirit or character--has so far, for profiteers, no visible limit.

~ Wendell Berry in the essay "Family Work" (1980), The Gift of Good Land

What do you think of this quote?

The interviews with David McCullough and Katherine Paterson are worth the price of the book.  Of course, McCullough understands the topic: he read what John Adams read while preparing to write about him.  And Diane Osen, editor and interviewer, has my admiration by one fact alone: she has read all of Trollope. 

And all those writers with whom I am unfamiliar?  Here's some of their stuff: 

David McCullough is a historian I greatly admire.  His books stick with me years after I've read them. 

I was very interested in the books that shaped him.  Here is a partial listing:

Katherine Paterson is a children's author whose works move me.  I have sobbed, visibly and vocally, through some chapters of her books.  And I was *thrilled* to discover that some of my most favoritest books ever are also hers. 

I'm including all the books that have changed Katherine Paterson's writing life.  You can be assured that the Desai and Endo books are now on my Wish Lists.

I'm curious about cousins.  Some are functional strangers who happen to be related.  Sharing an ancestor doesn't appear to be enough commonality to carry on a conversation. 

But other cousins, upon meeting for the first time in decades, seem familiar, because they truly are family.  They are kin and kindred. 

It's fun to discover family traits that travel through parallel generations.  One cousin said her husband calls her relatives "human doings" because of their high energy and focus on activity.  She quizzed Curt on his personality and came up with many matches; for example, she likes to read but only if all the work is done. 

We heard and told many stories.  Ah, the art of storytelling: the opening, timing, animation, interaction, enthusiasm, and the ability to stick the landing.  It's fun to listen to couples tag-team their history, one jumping in with color commentary, one handing off the narrative, at times both talking in stereo.  And stories flowing downstream accrue more stories.  There were goofy and crazy yarns, funny and unexpected outcomes.  But the ones that found a home in my heart were the stories where the person opened up his/her life, pain and all, and didn't mask the hurt.

I have a friend who has no cousins.  No aunts or uncles.  Her dad and mom were both the only child.  Her family history goes straight up the branch like a poplar tree.