Books from the Past
The few books from my youth that I have hung onto.
China
Coming in for a Landing
You might notice that my bookshelves do not only shelve books. There is an airplane, the box with the remains of our beloved cat Jane, some artwork from a friend that we haven’t hung up yet, and some unidentified stuffed toy. Bookshelves in our house are for more than books! Look carefully and you will see lots of Virginia Woolf’s diaries, and some of my favorites May Sarton, E. B. White, and one of my long time favorites ISLANDIA by Austin Tappan Wright. I have been forced to purge my book collection from time to time, when I move for example, but honestly if I got three wishes, one of them would be to have an entire house just for my home library.
Jill Erickson
Cookbooks
I'm not great at following recipes, but I do love to browse cookbooks looking for inspiration. Some of these are new(ish) acquisitions, other's I've had since the early 1980s.
My shelf space is limited, so at this point when I acquire a new cookbook, I need to let go of an old friend. It makes me pretty choosy.
Janet Gardner
Family Pictures
Gertrude
The Making of Americans: being a history of a family’s progress is an astonishing book, and it is also a very, very long book. Gertrude Stein should be on every college & university reading list, and I have no idea why she is not. And, as an aside, there is also a link between Gertrude Stein and Goodnight Moon!
Jill Erickson
Good Things from the Library
Happily, I got most of these from the public library a day or two before they closed. Now I am gratefully accepting temporary donations from friends.
Nan Casselbury
Infinite jest
Here are another couple of shelves of books. If you look closely you’ll see quite a few books by Maira Kalman, and if you look even closer you’ll see a series of books about the Stettheimer sisters. Reynolds Price sits not far from John Cheever, which I think is lovely, but not planned. The truth is, we have all kinds of bookshelves in our house, and need more shelving. Every summer I promise myself I will NOT BUY one more book at the Friends of the FPL book sale! And then I see some tempting book about typewriters or letters or diaries or an Angela Thirkell title I have yet to read. You’d never guess I spend every day in a public library!
Jill Erickson
Less is More
Which you would never know from looking at the stacks of books in my house that are NOT on bookshelves!
Jill Erickson
Library of America
I have a longtime friend who used to be an editor at The Library of America. Thus, I have a shelf that is almost entirely dedicated to LOA volumes. If you have never read anything by William Maxwell, do so! At least read TIME WILL DARKEN IT. (Not only is this a great novel, it also has a great section on house guests, which everyone who lives on Cape Cod should read before the summer hits.)
Jill Erickson