One of the books from My Bookshelf. Inscribed to my mother by my grandmother. My mother would have been eleven years old that Christmas
Almost 101 years ago
Tag: bookshelf
My Bookshelf – a post from 2010
14 years ago this blog post somehow created a lot of response on Reddit. When you scroll down and read the poem I wrote you’ll see how I reacted to all the negative comments. .
What books would you put on your favorites bookshelf?
What books would you select for your bookshelf to be painted by artist Jane Mount? Her Ideal Bookshelf paintings (click link to see) featured in the New Yorker Jane Mount’s Ideal Bookshelf By Monica Racic. August 10, 2009
inspired me to put twenty volumes together on one shelf and photograph them. Anne of Green Gables was a Christmas 1925 gift to my mother from her mother and the Gene Stratton-Porter book was my mother’s. C.S. Lewis’ Silver Chair is a stand-in for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Most of these books belonged to my sister Mary and got passed down to me. Longfellow was a gift to my brother David and me from Cousin Paul in 1961. In sixth grade I had to memorize, “Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands….. The Beatrix Potter in French was from my sister (who signed it Marie) and presented it to me on my half birthday one January fourth. The Book of Common Prayer is my grandmothers and inside she’s written the recipients of afghans she knit. The Tiny Golden Book in The Naughty Little Guest by Dorothy Kunhardt. The Sunny Sulky Book opened two different directions with the good children and bad children stories. I loved Fairy Eat-It-All who came in the night with a spoon for a little boy whose eyes were bigger than his stomach, and he had to eat his way through a mound of food he had taken and not eaten. So here are my books from growing up, all on one shelf.
My Bookshelf
You tell me my old books smell
like a Goodwill bin.
Old dust and stick your nose in,
breathe.
The weight of them
on the house’s foundation.
My hardwood floors sag.
You say I’m impaired
in technology.
Society will evolve without me?
All I need in my life
is an e-reader not musty books.
I like the feel of them in my hand.
Turn them over, slip off a dustjacket.
See the author peer back at me.
The opening of the first page.
Or a slender bookmark to hold my place.
I’m sad they’re closing the store.
My list of reasons to read
from a page (or your preferred screen)–
There’s escape,
entertainment,
information,
directions-
maps, cooking, and signs,
travel or how to put something together
take meds,
but for me
reason number one. Two and three.
There’s my mother’s voice
my dad’s, in certain volumes
reading to me-
the escape I mentioned before.
And enjoyment. Sheer enjoyment.
I’m sure you can think of more.
What books would you put on your “favorites bookshelf”?
Added June 23, 2024 You can contact Jane Mount for your very own custom bookshelf painting
He is Still Here
On a different shelf.
I blogged Baby Jake. four years ago (see below)
Looks like he’s on the WWII shelf now.
—from Blog May 2014—
WHAT I SAW ON MY SON’S BOOKSHELF IN HIS OFFICE
First Communion Weekend in my son Mark’s home office I saw his old Baby Jake from 1976.
I believed little boys should have a doll to love and care for when they were growing up. Preparing for fatherhood.
Now he has his own family of four, but it touched me when I saw his old doll Jake on the bookshelf. Jake has a soft body that has been recovered and filled with fluff, his rubbery arms surgically reattached by me.
You might have seen Mark’s 38th birthday post from Monday.
There is something about a toy or a doll with a face.
One that’s been well loved.
If you want to see a doll well loved, his wife Erika’s childhood doll (now named Baby Doll) adopted by their daughter Anna- really illustrates LOVE!
old rubber doll from 1976 with home sewn clothes I made for him
What I Saw on my Son’s Bookshelf in his Office
First Communion Weekend in my son Mark’s home office I saw his old Baby Jake from 1976.
I believed little boys should have a doll to love and care for when they were growing up. Preparing for fatherhood.
Now he has his own family of four, but it touched me when I saw his old doll Jake on the bookshelf. Jake has a soft body that has been recovered and filled with fluff, his rubbery arms surgically reattached by me.
You might have seen Mark’s 38th birthday post from Monday.
There is something about a toy or a doll with a face.
One that’s been well loved.
If you want to see a doll well loved, his wife Erika’s childhood doll (now named Baby Doll) adopted by their daughter Anna- really illustrates LOVE! (click the blue link)
Cookbook Shelves Shared and Eat and Grow Slim Clipping
Thanks to blog followers who shared their thoughts and comments on Feb 15th post Share Your Cookbook Shelf and to the two below who emailed photos of their cookbooks.
From Colleen
“This is about half my cookbook collection. I have over two hundred altogether. Another bookcase this size and lots of little stacks around the house. Last year I decided I would pick a cookbook a month and make five recipes I’d never tried. I did not complete the task every month but it was a lot of fun trying.”
Colleen
just half? Thanks for sharing your photo, Colleen.
and from Euthemia who says “My favorite cookbook is 660 Curries”
plus another photo of her three shelves of cookbooks
Euthemia sent this photo of her three shelves filled with cookbooks.
and here are a couple of photographs of my old cookbooks, a bit grainy in the low light shot with the iPhone
My parents spent their wedding night at The Palmer House in Chicago Illinois, August 28, 1939. I remember my dad said they ate Tomato Soup. The next day they took a train to New Haven where they would live for the next three years and they didn’t get a sleeper car but sat up (less expensive).
I bought the The Palmer House Cookbook on ebay and it is signed by the Head Chef Ernest E. Amiet in 1940 when it was published. I googled him and couldn’t find any further reference.
Anyone Can Bake Cook Book
from the interior of Anyone Can Bake
And a photographic plate from the Palmer House Cookbook of Calf’s Head en Tortue- trends and tastes change over time.
Share Your Cookbook Shelf
What’s on your cookbook shelf? These days, many people are cooking from recipes on the internet instead of cookbooks.
Did you ever discard or pass on a cookbook and then later regret your having gotten rid of it?
Diets, tastes and trends change over time. I have a wooden box of my grandmother’s recipes but I’m not making them.
I always enjoy reading a cookbook in bed, planning meals or dishes to try. Thinking about entertaining. What I usually end up doing is making the same things over and over again for the most part, not using a recipe.
Comfort foods as of late, with the ongoing winter temps I feel motivated to cook hearty meals- and eat them!
Here’s my sister’s cookbook shelf in NYC. You might remember seeing her kitchen. I love the Coldweather Cooking book and have a copy myself. I love to bake the Brown Mountain Cake out of the Farm Journal Country Cookbook. The Fannie Farmer makes me think of my mother’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook, tied with a ribbon.
I open old cookbooks, find a handwritten note or a yellowed recipe between the pages, see my mother’s hand- memories of my childhood or my children’s childhood, recipes past, present and the ones I’ve clipped for the future (always heavy on the desserts!)
I’ll share my cookbook shelf another post. Hope you will share your cookbook shelf photo.
It was hard to get it all in one shot, it’s a tight space!
Thirteen Hundredth Post Today
This is the blog’s 1300th post today. I don’t think I mentioned when it hit number 1200 or 1100. Thanks for following and looking and writing when you can.
Maybe it was the 13 which was the lucky number for two of my kids on their baseball uniforms years ago!
I was sitting on the floor and looked at some of Matthew’s books on a shelf at his Aunt Mary’s, thinking about him. Saw the brick wall reflected in the vintage looking alarm clock.
My Bookshelf
What books would you select for your bookshelf to be painted by artist Jane Mount? Her Ideal Bookshelf paintings (click link to see) featured in the New Yorker last August 11 inspired me to put twenty volumes together on one shelf and photograph them. Anne of Green Gables was a Christmas 1925 gift to my mother from her mother and the Gene Stratton-Porter book was my mother’s. C.S. Lewis’ Silver Chair is a stand-in for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Most of these books belonged to my sister Mary and got passed down to me. Longfellow was a gift to my brother David and me from Cousin Paul in 1961. In sixth grade I had to memorize, “Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands….. The Beatrix Potter in French was from my sister (who signed it Marie) and presented it to me on my half birthday one January fourth. The Tiny Golden Book in The Naughty Little Guest by Dorothy Kunhardt. The Sunny Sulky Book opened two different directions with the good children and bad children stories. I loved Fairy Eat-It-All who came in the night with a spoon for a little boy whose eyes were bigger than his stomach, and he had to eat his way through a mound of food he had taken and not eaten. So here are my books from growing up, all on one shelf.
My Bookshelf
You tell me my old books smell
like a Goodwill bin.
Old dust and stick your nose in,
breathe.
The weight of them
on the house’s foundation.
My hardwood floors sag.
You say I’m impaired
in technology.
Society will evolve without me?
All I need in my life
is an e-reader not musty books.
I like the feel of them in my hand.
Turn them over, slip off a dustjacket.
See the author peer back at me.
The opening of the first page.
Or a slender bookmark to hold my place.
I’m sad they’re closing the store.
My list of reasons to read
from a page (or your preferred screen)–
There’s escape,
entertainment,
information,
directions-
maps, cooking, and signs,
travel or how to put something together
take meds,
but for me
reason number one. Two and three.
There’s my mother’s voice
my dad’s, in certain volumes
reading to me-
the escape I mentioned before.
And enjoyment. Sheer enjoyment.
I’m sure you can think of more.