It is this, I think, that draws us to books in the first place, their nearly magical power to transport us to other landscapes, other lives.*
David Ulin
There comes amount in doIng your reading where your work begins to rhyme, When you start to see the connections.**
Seth Godin
Robert Macfarlane visits Miguel and Elena Angel Blanco’s Biblioteca del Bosque (Library of the Forest) made up of “books” that are reliquaries of forest items gathered “as a pilgrim, not a conqueror.”^
Miguel instructs Macfarlane as he partakes of this beguiling library:
Choose three books from the library. The first tells you of your past, the next shows your present and the last will see you future.^
Elena continues:
the books will choose you, not the other way round.^^
I found myself wondering about the books that have had a significantly directing influence on my life, that I felt had been written just for me.
Though I retain many books in my “library,” I know there are some that are more important to me than others: my reference library.
What’s in your reference section?
*From David Ulin’s The Lost Art of Reading;
**From Seth Godin’s blog: On doing the reading;
^Miguel Angel Blanco, quoted in Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways;
^^Elena Angel Blanco, quoted in Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways.