The door to Grandpa's library

I recently received a comment from a new reader who has a beautiful dog not unlike my Blue. She is an extraordinary artist and a fascinating and refreshing blogger. I visited her earlier this evening and found this post which reminded me of my grandfather.

You may remember that my grandfather shipped me his entire library a while ago, and I dedicated several posts to the beautiful books I received. Since Grandpa's death it has been hard to look at the books, and what should be a comfort is still a reminder of the loss. However, herhimnbryn reminded me with her short quote from the Rubaiyat of the joy my grandfather spread with his love of poetry and books. So, without further ado, I bring you Grandpa's (and my) "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam", Heritage Press, 1946, illustrations by Arthur Szyk:

P.S. Only one more sleep until Eurolush's birthday.......................................

Friday

It's a beautiful Friday afternoon, bright blue sky, strong sun, and I'm here in the library. This library has an entire wall of huge north-facing windows, it's astonishing how much of a difference sunshine can make to one's mood.

I have just waved goodbye to my lovely librarian friend, he must have been given the afternoon off as he usually leaves at 6. Earlier this afternoon he joined me with his cup of tea during his break and we chatted quite loudly in the "Quiet Study Area." That's about as naughty as I ever get.

Something remarkable has just occurred. A young woman walked into the library, and I know her, well...I don't really know know her...but there's a story.

This young woman walks down the street where I live every so often, and every so often I notice her and admire her from afar. She must be in her early twenties, pale pale skin, dark red long and straight hair, and perfect posture. She wears wonderfully inventive clothes, items that look like they might have been found in an op-shop and each one with a perfect quirky twist. In the height of summer I have seen her holding a small parasol. She lost her tortoiseshell cat a year or two ago and she asked me if I'd seen her. I told her that I love her style (doing that, as we all know, is called "blackbirding") and she thanked me. The way she spoke matched the way she looked, quiet, fascinating, confident, peaceful.

The woman sitting at the desk near me is sharing the one electrical outlet with me. Every hour or so we swap our laptop plugs around...it's like we are plugging into the Muse...taking turns listening to her whispers. When I said that to the woman she looked at me strangely. Oh well. I know that you understand.

A bird in the library

It's exactly a week since I returned home from Melbourne, and I am now officially a crafty-bloggers groupie. My plan is to follow all of my beloved crafty bloggers from Show to Show, holding their needles and threads, running back and forth with coffees and slushies, and staring adoringly at their patterns, colours and textures.

Ahem. Now, where was I?

Oh, yes....So one of the things I brought back from the Melbourne Craft Show was one of Jodie's birds. But it was a FLAT bird...it was a bird which needed to be CRAFTED into life. I opened the little envelope and found some printed material, thread, a black loop and a bit of plastic (for the bottom of the cage, don't you know).

People. People!!!!!!!! I DID IT!!!!!!! I CRAFTED MY VERY OWN BIRD, THAT'S HOW GREAT JODIE'S INSTRUCTIONS WERE!!!! It was easier than putting together an Ikea bookcase and TONS more fun.

My bird immediately took up residence in the library:

This is where I found her this evening:

Look at the ORIGINAL DETAIL I added to my precious one. See her little wings? See the little beads? Miss Commentbox has what crafters call "A Stash," and she let me rummage through it until I found the beads.


This is what the other side of my precious looks like. See how I made her sleepy? Even her wings are not as perky and ruffled. Actually....that was all an accident...the eye just didn't work out and I lost a bit of patience with matching the wings to the other side, but I IMPROVISED and now it's even better than if it was perfect.



And I named her too:










JOY.

Wild Swans

Thank you for your comforting words, your commentboxes mean the world to me.

Here is a piece composed and performed by Elena Kats-Chernin. It is 'Eliza's Aria' from "Wild Swans" - Kats-Chernin's collaboration for the Australian Ballet with choreographer Meryl Tankard, based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen.

Page 125 of Grandpa's book:

"Crush the nettles with your feet and you will have flax, which you must spin and weave into eleven shirts of mail with long sleeves. Once you throw these over the eleven wild swans, the spell over them is broken. But keep this in mind! From the moment you undertake this task until it is done, even though it lasts for years, you must not speak. The first word you say will strike your brothers' hearts like a deadly knife. Their lives are at the mercy of your tongue. Now, remember what I told you!"

Ladies of the Ring come in all shapes and sizes

Well...option two was the true Minette. I know, I know, who would have thought ANYBODY would come up with this story, and then illustrate it with so much detail and love. When I first read this little story I thought it was creepy and, frankly, kind of stupid. But I've had the book lying on my desk beside my laptop for a week or so until I found the time to photograph it, and it has started to grow on me.


The stylish and refined Minette with her bonnet and muff make me think that perhaps she too is a Lady of the Ring.
I love her candlestick.

I'm beginning to think it's a stroke of genius to have Minette leave her family home due to a disagreement with her older sister over "a doll with the most appetizing little Mouse's head you could possibly imagine....You, the elder, so good as a rule, quite lost your temper and beat me, you wretch, until you drew blood...all my misfortunes arose from this slight cause...I was so humiliated by such unjust treatment."

I think the name "Madame Brisquet" is just perfect. Although Madame Bifstek is very appealing too.

Below is Pechy-Ly, "my rival was a singular creature, a Chinese Cat from the province of Pechy-Ly, who had only just arrived and already had all the Tom-Cats of Paris - those notorious gadabouts - running after her."

Poor Minette. Just look at her, lying on her sofa and watching daytime television and wondering if Taylor and Ridge will ever get together again.

Pick a true Minette

Below are three synopses of the tiny book in my library "Poor Minette - The letters of two French cats." Which is the true one? Tell me what you think!

P.S. Please forgive me for not adding those little French doo-dads above some of the letters, I am too tired to find out how to do it on my keyboard.


1/
This little book records the written communication between Minette and her best friend Gigi following their unexpected separation. Their mistresses had been neighbours and best friends for many years until Minette's mistress (Mademoiselle Celia) married Monsieur Pierre and moved to a grand manor in the country. While Gigi continues to live the high life in her city apartment, poor Minette must face the harsh realities of married life in the country. As Minette becomes more and more depressed so do her letters become sadder and sadder. This leads Gigi to put together a cunning plot to force her mistress to make the long trip to the country to visit her friend, thus allowing Minette and Gigi to enjoy a blissful holiday in each other's company.


2/
This little book records the written communication between Minette and her older sister Bebe. Minette begs Bebe's and Maman's forgiveness for having run away from home many years ago, and asks them if she may return to them. It seems that Minette ran away from home following a terrible fight she had with Bebe over a mouse-doll which their mistress had given them to share. Soon after running away, Minette met the handsome and rich Brisquet and agreed to marry him, only to find a year later that he was having an affair with a younger cat. Bebe responds to Minette's request to return home by insisting that she must remain with her husband, for at least he is rich, while she and Maman are terribly poor.


3/
This little book records the written communication between Minette and her beloved friend Marie. It seems that Minette and Marie had stopped talking to each other following an incident involving a tomcat called Biftek, the popular Parisian nightclub 'Lumiere', and a missing collar. Minette is now desperate to regain the lost friendship and therefore sends daily letters to Marie, each one describing how bereft she is without her beloved and treasured friend. Marie responds with letters detailing the many reasons why she will never forgive Minette. This continues until a terrible and tragic accident leads them back into each other's lives and hearts.

Poor Minette

I was trying to keep my top-secret library assistant all to myself, but then eurolush posted this picture and I just knew it would mean trouble.

Sure enough, I left the computer for a mere second last night and returned to find my precious top-secret library assistant sitting on the keyboard and staring up at the screen with love-struck eyes. Love, I am afraid. Long-distance, impossible, blog-inspired, tiny, whiskery, cute-as-a-button love.

This morning, this is where I found my pocket-sized library assistant.





The books had not been dusted, fiction was shelved with non-fiction, and the Shakespeare shelf had been badly pillaged.

It's sweet and all, I know...I even agreed to post this darling photograph of her posing with 'Anderson's Fairy Tales' (her favourite book).



But when I refused to allow her to post a love poem on my blog...well....let's just say it got ugly.

She took a hostage:

I'm afraid that poor Minette is having an even harder time of it than we thought.

I may have to call in security.

It's library day

As you know by now, my Grandpa sent me his library a couple of years ago and nothing gives me more pleasure than sharing some of the books with my blogging buddies. The library in my house is also a workplace for myself and my two children, and recently it has also become the room in which my son plays Guitar Hero World Tour (at least I think that's what it's called...we have the guitars and a friend brings over the other instruments). It physically pains me to see my library used in this way, and yet it also amuses me no end. I am certain that in all of the years those beautiful book spent in my grandparents' various homes, they never witnessed four thirteen-year-old boys screeching "The Eye of the Tiger" while beating on a drum and pressing the buttons of computerised guitars, with their shirts off, and jumping...no.....leaping back and forth, immediately next door to the room of a seventeen-year-old girl who is studying for her final exams.

Anyway.

I have not been reading very much myself lately, so I thought this post would be an excellent opportunity to jump-start my return to the library by displaying for your viewing pleasure my Grandpa's "Tiny Books." They are not officially entitled "Tiny Books," they are actually "Miniature Books - Rodale Press." My daughter had a security blanket when she was a baby, which used to be my security blanket (told you, my mother keeps EVERYTHING) and the more she loved it the tinier it became, until it was finally a little square of fabric, and it was known as "Tiny Blanket." Anyway....... ahem.......... where was I? Ah yes, here are the Tiny Books:




I will list the titles for you, and then you can let me know if any one of them particularly takes your fancy. I might choose a title or two out of a hat if I get several different requests, or I might feature the most popular title, if there is one. Or I might completely neglect my real life and spend the next month photographing and describing all of the books, tiny, medium and large, in my library.

You just never know.

The Tinies are:

Old English Coffee Houses
Poor Minette - The Letters of Two French Cats - P.J. Stahl
La Belle O'Morphi - A Brief Biography
Belphagor - Niccolo Machiavelli
Bibliomania - Gustave Flaubert
My Dear Mrs Jones - The Letters of the Duke of Wellington
Voltaire - Studies by Oliver Goldsmith and Victor Hugo
A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco - King James the First
The Vindication of Wives
Satire Against Husbands
I Kiss Your Hands - The Maupassant-Bashkirtseff Letters
Daumier, Caricaturist - Henry James

For Alice

Simplicissimus

For Alice C

The binding, in natural-colour half-linen imported from the Netherlands, is stamped in dark brown on the shelfback and blind-stamped on the front cover.

Small, monster-like, curly-tailed creatures also adorn the cover!

The end-leaves are a rust laid stock from Strathmore,

echoing the colour used within the book.

First published in 1669,

this is "the earliest work in German literature

to deal with contemporary events in everyday language."

Simplicissimus would have loved blogging.

This would have been his avatar in your comment box:

His comments would have been quite cynical and world-weary.

But written with great wit and humour.

He travelled quite a bit, and met such interesting people

from all over

and under

the world.

He would have adored your beautiful photographs

of food and housewares.

He led a simple life,

fictional,

but based in fact.

Much like all good bloggers do.

___________________

So, dear Alice, I hope you enjoyed Simplicissimus.

It is certainly a huge book,

and I am quite certain that I will never actually read it from cover to cover,

but that is of no consequence.

For Simplicissimus will now always remind me of a dear blogging friend

from England

who knocked on the door of my library,

and spent some time with me.

______________________

Alice is the last borrower of the day.

I hope to be able to share many more of my bookshelves with you in the near future. Until then, I am toying with the idea of starting another short story in installments.

Oh, yes, I should also mention that another Jewish festival is coming up -this Thursday is the most solemn day of the year, Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). No, this is not the cheesecake holiday, but rather a day of fasting.

Wishing you all a wonderful week! Your book choices have been inspiring, and your comments have been so very interesting!

Eleanor xxxx

Julia's book

The library has officially reopened!

Hooray!

Welcome, welcome, come in, please, make yourself at home.

Today I am pleased to introduce you to a brand-new member of the library. Everyone, please make Julia feel welcome as she browses the bookshelves. Julia has come here all the way from Prague, so she's a little tired and needs some tender loving care and extra attention. What was that Eurolush? You've come all the way from Germany? Now, Eurolush...we've talked about this before...it's not always ALL ABOUT YOU...excuse me...young lady....where do you think you're going with that chocolate croissant??!! STRICTLY NO FOOD ALLOWED IN THE LIBRARY!!! VERBOTTEN!!

There, that's better. What was that Badger? Why, of COURSE you can keep sipping on your cocktail. Dude....alcohol consumption is ENCOURAGED in the library. Now...where was I? Yes. Right. Before we begin our discussion of Julia's book, I'd like to commend the following borrowers for their marvellous book choices last week, as well as the prompt returning of said books - RW, Tuli, Mary and Suse. These four members managed to borrow their books without needing to resort to physical violence, unlike two sisters we all (ahem) remember well from last week. The Unfortunate Incident Involving The Bronte Sisters is a lesson to us all - reading and sibling rivalry is a lethal combination.

Ahem, now Julia, what a wonderful first choice you have made with this simply divine edition of Northanger Abbey. Its multicoloured, striped cloth cover brings to mind the hues of a rainbow, as it subtly makes its way out from behind the dark grey clouds of a winter's day in Prague.

It is not garishly bright, but there are just enough yellow sunbeams in it to bring a smile to your face. Well...at least, I hope so.

I thought you might like to see the decorative line which signals the beginning of each chapter. Also, the simple elegance of the embellishment of the first letter.

You may have noticed that a small connecting flourish is used whenever a 'c' and 't' are printed next to each other

Also between 's' and 't'. I find it quite annoying, actually. Perhaps someone knows the reason for this style of print?

I know you were hoping for an illustration, well...there are many:

What do you think Julia? I was, at first, quite surprised at the darkness of the illustrations. They have a melancholy air about them which is quite beautiful, but unexpected.

Below is the colophon which is found on the very last page of the book. Isn't that simply gorgeous?

I hope you enjoy your choice, and please do return to the library whenever you wish.

Good evening all, and may all your endings be happy.