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June 1

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Date: June 1
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A #bookstagram account featuring Mia’s favorite books from the Library! 📚 Every book posted is available for checkout. 📖

“In the morning I asked, who were you before you w

“In the morning I asked, who were you before you walked into my kitchen? And she said, will I tell you my own story? It is the tale of a bird.”

These retellings are poetic, queer, with such tender hearts at the center! No matter what I read, fairytales always feel like coming home.

#emmadonaghue #kissingthewitch #fairytales

“Grandmother had always liked this great change in

“Grandmother had always liked this great change in August, most of all, perhaps, because of the way it never varied: a place for everything and everything in its place.”

This is the most perfect book I’ve ever read. It captures summer: life on an island filled with the rhythms of wind and sea, sunny days outdoors, imaginary games. Peppered throughout with (often very funny) dialogue between a little girl and her grandmother.

And, just as summer winds down and you begin to feel fall through it, at the end of the book…you realize it is about death. It feels unbearably poignant but at the same time, not sad at all.

I’d suggest rounding this out by reading “Notes from an Island” about Tove’s actual Scandinavian island, and “Moominpappa at Sea,” a more whimsical take for children. But in each, the atmosphere she creates is the same. It is complete.

#tovejansson #thesummerbook

“And so they decided that the manor-house must hav

“And so they decided that the manor-house must have fallen to pieces, and that all the human beings in the world must be dead. No one ever contradicted them in this opinion, and therefore it must needs be true. And, for their sakes, the raindrops beat upon the burdock-leaves and made drum music; and, for their sakes, the sun shone on the burdock-leaves, giving them a bright green color; and they were very happy.”

Andersen’s “fairytales” are tiny dramas crafted from observation of the mundane: nature, but also brooms and pots and toys and even coins.

I loved his sad stories as a child: Little Mermaid, The Fir Tree. Those nods to mortality always caught me most. Re-reading as an adult, I loved how these stories felt like they embodied my subconscious? Perhaps because they helped create it. That’s what happens when you read beautiful stories as you grow up!

Photos: things that remind me of Hans Christian Andersen because they show that this world is already magical.

#hanschristianandersen #fairytale

“But where their thinking ends, ours begins.” Whe

“But where their thinking ends, ours begins.”

When the BookTokers say “this book changed my brain chemistry!”… I think of “The Man Who Could Move Clouds.” It fundamentally altered what I knew to be possible.

This is a wild, beautiful and moving tale. It unfurls like an epic, filled with ghosts, dreams, curses, love, violence, family. But it is not fiction. It is memory.

And “remembering is resurrection.”

Mami says, “You have to tell a story that will allow the client to experience the truth without your ever having to name it.”

This is such a story, and as I read it, I felt I was experiencing truth.

#themanwhocouldmoveclouds @i__rojascontreras

“Once, the mountains held within their silvered wa

“Once, the mountains held within their silvered walls a forest so high and so gracefully forgotten that it rode above the troubles of the world as easily as the blinding white clouds that sometimes catch on jagged peaks and musically unfurl.”

I could picture that forest. I read this book summer after summer. It was perfect for those days of wandering aimlessly and imagining things. This is a beautiful fairytale, told in Mark Helprin’s signature blend of humor and fantasy. Chris Van Allsburg’s illustrations fit perfectly.

I think I kept coming back to this because it is about a young girl learning who she is through a story. It is about love and family: those who are your blood and those who almost are. How to choose what world you live in. And the sadness of it all.

#swanlake

“Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope,

“Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.”

This is my copy of the book. It is pocket sized, because this is a book that should be carried in your pocket. I wanted to photograph it in the spring because this book feels like spring to me.

Why do I love it so much? It’s how accurately it clocks your despair and then makes you feel ok about being alive. A wonder. A teacher. A hope.

#thehours #michaelcunningham #virginiawoolf

“After love / has reached the speed of light/ it i

“After love / has reached the speed of light/ it is invisible again”

It is powerful enough that this book speaks on genocide. But it’s more than an artifact of witness. There is grace here. Each line wants to be held and thought about awhile. I plan to do just that.

#fadyjoudah #palestinianpoet

“By being fully present and receptive to an experi

“By being fully present and receptive to an experience so different from anything that I had been raised to understand, my personal and professional life was changed. I was transformed.”

After reading this, I developed an intense desire for India. I wound up studying religions in college, including Hinduism. And when I was 20, I was fortunate enough to visit India. On the last day of my homestay, my host mother took me to Meenakshi Temple for darshan with Meenakshi herself. I remember standing barefoot on the warm stones, the bright saris of the other worshippers, my host mother’s arm in mine. I will always treasure this special experience.

This book is by a Westerner and non-Hindu. I’ve since learned directly from Indians who practice the religion. But as an entry point, this is perfect. For am I not also a Westerner and non-Hindu? And as a foreigner, I too have witnessed the sacred and let it touch me. Now, I know exactly what he means. India has transformed me.

I took these photos in 2010: Meenakshi Temple, in Madurai. And my host mother’s kolam.

#india

“For neither stone nor wood nor flinty arrow -poin

“For neither stone nor wood nor flinty arrow -point nor barb of iron would break the promise which each had given. Balder was safe with them, just as if he were bewitched.”

One winter, I found this book on the shelf. Worn, mysterious, with a beautifully embossed cover. I loved it because it looked like it could have come out of a myth! I knew all about Greek mythology, but this was my introduction to the northern lands. Thumbing through this book now, I’m struck by how the myth unfolds as one continuous narrative. From the first chapter, “The Beginning of Things,” to the end, “Loki’s Punishment.” (Was Ragnarök considered too brutal for children?) I remember that I loved Balder. However, it was really the whole experience of finding this book that I loved.

This has not circulated in a long time, but I keep it in our stacks. I want others to discover it and enjoy it. Libraries are many things. Originally for me they were places where the line between real and fantasy can blend. The book as an object of magic.

#norsemythology #inthedaysofgiants

“I am intrigued by the continuity of places, by th

“I am intrigued by the continuity of places, by the singing line that connects them all.”

Some books you love for the project itself. I love this for being a catalog of places. This is a theme I too try to express. And I love it for the visual component, which I think about constantly, whether I’m photographing or not. How do we use our sight? The type of photographs he takes, like the one for Seminyak. Light slicing a green door, a ladder in view. That’s all. Something you’d just glance at if you saw it. And yet, it makes a place. Cole writes, “What I visit less often is what has been labeled beautiful ahead of time, what has been verified by the tourist board. I want to see the things the people who live there see.”

The books I feature on this account are ones that I love for sentimental or personal reasons. Teju Cole’s work however, I love because it inspires me. If it inspires you too, we have two more books of his at the Library. And check out his Instagram as well (@_tejucole).

#tejucole #blindspot #photography

The Dachshund and the Piglet? The Tortoise and the

The Dachshund and the Piglet? The Tortoise and the Hippo? The Golden Retriever and the…Koi?! The Mouflon and the Eland? (What even are those?) These, dear readers, are unlikely animal friends! This was actually one of the first books I ever accessioned when I became librarian and it made an impression because it’s adorable. Is this not the best comfort book in these/or any times??

I’ve since acquired another book about animal friends for our children’s section. Check it out for: Cat Climbs Over Patient Pig, Chicken Rides Capybara and more…

Books that bring joy. Do you know any animal pairings I should learn about?

🐈‍⬛🐇🦔🦡🐖🦬🦋🐐🐍🐫🦢🐆🦭🦥🦨🐏🦛🦓🦘🦙🦒🐌🦉🦌🐘🐅🐓🐢🦆🦦

#unlikelyanimalfriends

“I knocked down some more things. I didn’t care. T

“I knocked down some more things. I didn’t care. Things kept falling.”

I love this book. Simply put, it shocked me. How he starts a story like a conversation, or a joke: “This friend of mine from work…” And then I’m reading about something ordinary like a baker calling with a cake order, or a man with a plugged up ear. And feeling it and caring about it as though I was that person. I think it’s got to be Raymond Carver himself. It doesn’t work when a writer from a Carver-obsessed MFA program tries to write in his manner. It feels contrived. I agree that his influence is a bit overdone.

As a young writer, I wouldn’t say I tried to emulate Carver. But these stories did fundamentally change how I understood writing. They just have a certain something I’ve never found elsewhere. His poetry too. That delivery. Like it’s just talking, but rich. So I love Raymond Carver and this will forever be one of my favorite books.

#raymondcarver

“From the beginning, Aya didn’t necessarily need t

“From the beginning, Aya didn’t necessarily need the piano. Since childhood, when she first heard the sound of horses galloping in the rain as it lashed on the tin roof, she could hear — and enjoy — music from many different sources.”

This book depicts the joy of music for me. Music is play, discovery, the sheer pleasure of finding your own artistry. And music is an expression of the world. I’ve never read something so like my own inner experience with music. It’s been a long time since I played piano. This is my favorite score, annotated by my teacher. My time as a pianist is a precious memory. I thank Riku Onda for conjuring it up.

#piano #honeybeesanddistantthunder #bach #rikuonda

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rock

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I AM Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

I read this when I was 15. My English teacher had us underlining every other word. It was a master text for explaining literary mechanisms to a group of high schoolers. Looking back, I’m skeptical of the near perfect amount of symbolism it provided. But I loved the book.

I later read a piece about “Wuthering Heights” that pointed out that Emily Brontë died at age 30. This book, her only novel, was written at age 27 and takes place in an emotional landscape that might strike older readers as strange. This gave me a whole new understanding of the book and why it resonated with me at that time. It’s more than just a sentimental tale made for English Lit 101. It is wild as the moors. It shows an unfiltered (and therefore slightly unhinged) version of love. What a memory.

#wutheringheights #emilybrontë #heathcliff #cathy

“If it were possible to bridge the distance betwee

“If it were possible to bridge the distance between me and Italian, I would stop writing in that language.”

This book can be read as a memoir of craft. It is a travelogue, a journey: real and metaphorical. And it’s also about foreignness, what it means to be “other.” As someone who has also navigated foreign countries, as a brown person who’s also often stuck between two worlds, and as a writer who loves words, Lahiri’s observations read like a special revelation to me.

#jhumpalahiri #inotherwords #italian #bilingual

“I loved the song I was living in.” This book is

“I loved the song I was living in.”

This book is a spell. It is a fairytale, but set in the glitzy world of fashion and modeling. Like any book about a spell, it is also about breaking the enchantment. And like anything about beauty, it is also about ugliness. Most of all, I loved it for the way it talks about the hidden rooms in music.

#marygaitskill #veronica #modeling

“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mi

“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly.”

From his hospital bed, he travels. He walks through places he’s visited and places he wishes to go, he relives memories, and he considers with wonder the things around him: drawings from his children, a view of the sea, the alphabet system his speech therapist has devised to help him communicate. For Bauby has locked-in syndrome, and can only move his left eyelid. This whole book was composed in over 200,000 blinks, transcribed by Claude Mendibil.

It reminds me of the way that my mind too can wander and help me escape my diving bell—whether that heaviness is physical or mental. Our diving bells are not the same, but the feeling of a diving bell is something I resonate with.

This week, I wanted to know that beautiful things exist. I wanted to be aware of the butterflies that surround our diving bells and sometimes even penetrate them. I wanted to know that escape is possible, even if you cannot truly escape. If you, too, need this awareness: pick up this book.

#thedivingbellandthebutterfly

Well, are you?! This book is so sweet. It’s for mo

Well, are you?! This book is so sweet. It’s for mothers everywhere. But what it especially reminds me of, are those people we find who aren’t our mothers and we wish they were. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, they can step into the role for a season or for longer. It’s a special kind of relationship. I kind of want to show this book to my “second mom.” 🙂 #pdeastman #areyoumymother #transference #mothersday

“Feral. He wanted to be free.” I love this book

“Feral. He wanted to be free.”

I love this book fiercely. It is so much: hawks & falconry, a diary of grief, a wrestling with nature and literature. Most of all it is the embedded biography of TH White, tortured and trying to redeem himself through a hawk. My heart stirred so greatly for him. Helen breaks the spell for herself and for White on these pages. I can’t recommend a finer book on the subject of creation. #hisforhawk #thwhite

“The error of love that proved its perfection.” T

“The error of love that proved its perfection.”

This is less a book and more of a multi voiced unfolding poem. Atleast that’s how it felt to me. I went through it not trying to understand, certain I’ll come back for closer reading later. I let what little plot there is go and was just there with the language. So I can’t really tell you what this book is. Except one of the most beautiful reading experiences I’ve had recently. #annemichaels

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