This is what I do when I read. If someone interrupts me, I shoot ‘em! :-) [Picture is of Italo Calvino]

This is what I do when I read. If someone interrupts me, I shoot ‘em! :-)

[Picture is of Italo Calvino]

Our bookstores hold a place in our communities where people go to escape their lives, to talk to a real person and just sit in a comfy chair surrounded by personally curated literature.
Annie Philbrick, president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association (via)
aaknopf: Raymond Carver (1938-1988), was a poet before he was celebrated as a writer of short stories. Here is “Eagles,” from his 1985 collection Where Water Comes Together with Other Water. Eagles It was a sixteen-inch ling cod that the eagledropped near our feetat the top of Bagley Creek canyon,at the edge of the green woods.Puncture marks in the sides of the fishwhere the bird gripped with its talons!That and a piece torn out of the fish’s back.Like an old painting recalled,or an ancient memory coming back,that eagle flew with the fish from the Straitof Juan de Fuca up the canyon to wherethe woods begin, and we stood watching.It lost the fish above our heads,dropped for it, missed it, and soared onover the valley where wind beats all day.We watched it keep going until it wasa speck, then gone. I picked upthe fish. That miraculous ling cod.Came home from the walk and—why the hell not?—cooked itlightly in oil and ate itwith boiled potatoes and peas and biscuits.Over dinner, talking about eaglesand an older, fiercer order of things. Learn more about Raymond Carver’s Book Title and browse other titles by Raymond Carver. To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link » …and oh, hey, another Cavafy audio bonus arrives today.

aaknopf:

Raymond Carver (1938-1988), was a poet before he was celebrated as a writer of short stories. Here is “Eagles,” from his 1985 collection Where Water Comes Together with Other Water.

Eagles

It was a sixteen-inch ling cod that the eagle
dropped near our feet
at the top of Bagley Creek canyon,
at the edge of the green woods.
Puncture marks in the sides of the fish
where the bird gripped with its talons!
That and a piece torn out of the fish’s back.
Like an old painting recalled,
or an ancient memory coming back,
that eagle flew with the fish from the Strait
of Juan de Fuca up the canyon to where
the woods begin, and we stood watching.
It lost the fish above our heads,
dropped for it, missed it, and soared on
over the valley where wind beats all day.
We watched it keep going until it was
a speck, then gone. I picked up
the fish. That miraculous ling cod.
Came home from the walk and—
why the hell not?—cooked it
lightly in oil and ate it
with boiled potatoes and peas and biscuits.
Over dinner, talking about eagles
and an older, fiercer order of things.

Learn more about Raymond Carver’s Book Title and browse other titles by Raymond Carver.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link »

…and oh, hey, another Cavafy audio bonus arrives today.

kidpoetic:

4.19.13

Books were my first friends.

During my lunch break I decided to check out this book shop/cafe in Dupont Circle. Cute little place, will definitely have to come here during the summer.

Shot with a Nikon D3100.

kidpoetic

theunseeliequeen:

These Are a Few of My Favorite Books → The Adventures of Shelock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

theunseeliequeen

i

In view of the fading animals
the proliferation of sewers and fears
the sea clogging, the air
nearing extinction

we should be kind, we should
take warning, we should forgive each other

Instead we are opposite, we
touch as though attacking,

the gifts we bring
even in good faith maybe
warp in our hands to
implements, to manoeuvres


ii

Put down the target of me
you guard inside your binoculars,
in turn I will surrender

this aerial photograph
(your vulnerable
sections marked in red)
I have found so useful

See, we are alone in
the dormant field, the snow
that cannot be eaten or captured


iii

Here there are no armies
here there is no money

It is cold and getting colder,

We need each others’
breathing, warmth, surviving
is the only war
we can afford, stay

walking with me, there is almost
time / if we can only
make it as far as

the (possibly) last summer

Margaret Atwood, “They are hostile nations”
 (via growing-orbits)

Word Painting

onsereverra

E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.
Anne Lamott; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

laetificus

“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”

Charles Bukowski; The People Look Like Flowers at Last
cafesblog: Left Bank Books, Seattle

cafesblog:

Left Bank Books, Seattle

cafesblog

ebookporn: Wet books set out to dry at the University of Nebraska-Kearny library after a massive storm tore it’s roof off. A powerful and oddly beautiful image but what about digital content lost in a massive server attack or data lost due to format obsolescence? The banality of damaged and corrupted data in archives and libraries may make it more difficult to marshal communities to the rescue.  ~ eP Read more on how libraries respond to disasters here

ebookporn:

Wet books set out to dry at the University of Nebraska-Kearny library after a massive storm tore it’s roof off. A powerful and oddly beautiful image but what about digital content lost in a massive server attack or data lost due to format obsolescence? The banality of damaged and corrupted data in archives and libraries may make it more difficult to marshal communities to the rescue.  ~ eP

Read more on how libraries respond to disasters here

I’m different, learn to accept it.

I’m different, learn to accept it.

I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.
Virginia Woolf; The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928
Yup, me too.

Yup, me too.