BOOKS

Libraries are sacred institutions and when their budgets get cut I get riled. I’ve been told that the Cincinnati library is one of the best in the nation and not too long ago was considered by some to be the best. Recently they have reduced the amount of books on shelves in the main library here, for whatever reason. There is a lot more empty space everywhere. Space for chairs, tables, plants....whatever. I don’t understand this but who am I to know what’s behind it. I still love libraries.

A public building devoted to the storage and dissemination of knowledge - what could be better than that?

Books have power. Lately, the electronic books have been elbowing their way into the world, bit by bit. I understand their convenience and don’t feel too threatened by their arrival. I believe that the printed book will survive and exist side-by-side with it’s digital cousin. If this turns out to be false and printed books go the way of the typewriter, then the world will be a sadder place for it but life will go on.

Someone gave me an old, cheap bookcase recently and I painted it and placed it in the corner of my living room. I brought books in from my bedroom and there - instantly - my place was transformed. There in the corner is a new friend, a warm and familiar pal of seemingly unlimited learning and information and emotion.

This winter I finally discovered Carson McCullers. I knew of her writing but for some odd reason I never took up that exploration. Once I read a collection of her short stories (The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and other stories) I had to keep going, on to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter  and Reflections in a Golden Eye. Her musical cadence and often odd structure and characterization point to an enormous poetic gift for truly magical storytelling. Today’s New York Times has an article about musical artist Suzanne Vega and her new play devoted to McCullers. I don’t know why I am so late to the party but isn’t it wonderful to know that the world is endlessly filled with stuff to discover, to enjoy, to take inward and outward  

on the ceaseless journey of living.