This week, I’m reposting one of my very favorite Gimblings – a little poem I wrote a few years ago that still feels true today. My house is a little less hoard-ish since I wrote this, but it’s still chock full of books. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Too Many Books I have books upon [….]
Litstack Rec: An Unnecessary Woman & Extraordinary Adventures
Published on :An Unnecessary Woman, by Rabih Alameddine “I like outsiders,” Aaliya Sohbi tells us, “phantoms wandering the cobwebbed halls of the doomed castle where life must be lived.” The narrator of Rabih Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman, is herself an outsider, a reclusive, seventy-two year old bibliophile who lives alone in the Beirut apartment she’s inhabited since [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Favorite Books of 2016
Published on :The “Best Books of 2016”? Pul-eeze. Unless one has a universally agreed-upon metric that can be applied to every single book published in any given year, there can be no anointing “the best”. Most popular, sure. Best seller, most prestigious, highest lauded, yup. But “Best”? As if. Ah, but “Favorite”! Anyone can share their favorite [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – The Gift of Reading
Published on :I tend to be one of those people who obsesses over gift giving. I don’t get a chance to do it all that often – I’m actually pretty frugal in that regard, sometimes by choice, now by necessity. And I don’t really like getting gifts myself; I’ve rarely liked being the center of attention which [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – My Own Genre of Postcards, My Own Genus of Photographs
Published on :“A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.” – Jorge Luis Borges ~ * ~ I’ve been trying to figure out why it is that I feel compelled to buy books I’ve read but do not own, despite knowing that I probably will not have time to [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – Sometimes When I Read…
Published on :Sometimes when I read, it’s like a lovely summer’s day when the sun is shining but it’s not too hot, not too humid, and there’s a light breeze, so I can sit on the porch and watch the world go by. Those books are the ones that are easy to slip in and out of, [….]
National Library Week – Lifeline, Anchor, Deadweight
Published on :In honor of National Library Week, we give you a follow-up to Sharon’s essay yesterday about being addicted to requests from the library, where a somewhat tongue-in-cheek/somewhat serious piece wonders if there truly can be too much of a good thing. From 2015, here is the essay Lifeline, Anchor, Deadweight. ~ * ~ * ~ [….]
National Library Week – My Library Request Addiction
Published on :~ * ~ In honor of National Library Week, we at LitStack are running some of our favorite essays regarding our love of libraries. Today, in an essay from 2014, our Gimbling in the Wabe columnist shares her thoughts on being a Library Request Addict. ~ * ~ * * Hi, My Name is Sharon [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – Winter and Reading
Published on :The bulk of this Gimbling in the Wabe came from one I had posted three years ago; it’s also, I think, my favorite “winter” installment of this feature. So, since I’m running short of time and inspiration this week, I thought I would run it again, albeit with a bit of adjustment from the original. [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – On Children and Censorship
Published on :Okay, so…. I know my memory isn’t what it should be. But I can’t remember ever – not once – being told that I couldn’t read a particular book. That it wasn’t appropriate, or had unsuitable content. Not from a teacher, a parent, a librarian. Not when I was young, certainly not when I got [….]