Skip to main content

Leaving a Legacy


I remember hearing a story once about a man who left his library to his children after he died. When they went through the books, they found he had inscribed a note to them about each book, explaining why it was important to him and why it might be important to them.

Ever since I heard about this man and his library, I have wanted to keep a record of books for my own children. Since so many of us read books digitally, and so many of my own important reading experiences have been through the public library, recording my impressions on a blog seems more relevant and more helpful.

This is different than reviewing books, of course. It's more a matter of recollection, since many of the books recorded here are very old, and their contents already approved by myriads of readers across history. Some are not so blessed. Some, in fact, might have been either forgotten or ignored by history. Some might be very new. Some might be epic novels, some picture books, and still others might be non-fiction odes to beauty. What unites them is that I have for one reason or another decided to communicate something about them to my children.

I should qualify here that I am not a parent. Much in the vein of 1001 Rules for My Unborn Son, this begins as a project for hypothetical progeny. Nor will I weep over my soup if such bairns are ne'er born (not yet, at least).

Don't expect posts every day here. I will be writing for relevance and quality, not quantity, so please be patient. I will do my best, because I care about you all, but like last year's blog, this is an exercise for me. We'll see how it goes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...

Being a Baker

Working at the Main Library has surprising advantages. Just now I stepped out of my office, walked five paces across the hall, scanned a badge, and walked under the civic center plaza to the elevator that stretches from beneath the earth up to the mayor’s office on the fourteenth floor. I didn’t have so far to go—just up one level to the utilities counter, where a sympathetic, amused woman named Sue shut down my gas payments. It took less than five minutes. I finished packing up my kitchen days ago. My cake pans were in boxes sometime early last week. But as I walked through the underground loading dock on my way back to the office, I was distinctly aware of the finality of what I’d just done. I would never, from that moment on, be able to bake for anyone out of that kitchen. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a very big deal, but I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of a certain identity, namely being “the person who bakes a lot”. I made a tiered wedding cake for some friends (because...

Fontastic

One of the perpetual projects in my little publishing company's life is the development of our company logo. This is my favorite project, as it involves the use of fonts. And I am rather a font fanatic. I have spent the last few hours trolling dafont.com, which is a wonderful website of free and mostly-free fonts for personal and often commercial usage. Rather than download every font I like, I sketched out my own versions of each of them as they inspired me. I thought I'd share them with you here, and if any of my noble readers have preferences, feel free to shoot me a comment. I am hoping I have determined the font-of-choice by the time the new website is ready to go up. After all, what's a corporate website without a corporate logo? Here are some photos of my most recent selections.