Saturday Bookself :: week one

"This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the springtide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions..."

do you know walter benjamin's essay on "unpacking my library"? it is filled with quotes like the one above. and well worth a read. (or reread as the case may be.)

i am in the process of packing up the girls' "library" and am incredibly nostaligic as i box up so many memories along with the books. i struggled with what to do with these. and part of me knows i should let them go / pass them on. but i am a collector by nature and a bibliophile too and so the most dear are being put away, with the hope that they will be shared again with someone i love, someday.

i want to start documenting (weekly) what we are reading here. both as an incentive (for me) to finish books i begin and to record what we can about what we are reading.


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Title: The Curve of Time

Author: M. Wylie Blanchet

Reader: T

Thoughts: This is one of those books that in the beginning I wasn't sure about but by the end found myself transformed by. It is an epic true tale of a mom and her five children (and their dog) exploring the coast of British Columbia on their 25 foot boat Caprice over fifteen summers in the late 1920s early 1930s. (The same boat from which her husband disappeared, leaving her a widow.)

There is so much I could say. This is a book about a place I have loved - and describes a landscape etched in my own heart. (White shell beaches, purple sea stars, barnacles underfoot...) It is a book about adventure and raising children and being a mom. On death. And on living.

Its not terribly well written - but it provided personal connections that made it hard to put down.

"Destiny rarely follows the pattern we would choose for it and the legacy of death often shapes our lives in ways we could not imagine."

It is a book I will read again. (And again.)