More Books in the House

The Christmas wrapping is in the compost and the presents are now in a stack next to my bed.  They are almost all books, added to the hundred or so others piled up between my side of the bed and the window.  I've been home from work for a couple of days, and during this time have acquired even more.  I went to a book store on Wednesday, looking for a copy of "Love in the Time of Cholera" for a book club that I may or may not make it to, but they didn't have it in stock so I got it nearly instantly downloaded to my Kindle instead (when two day delivery is not fast enough).  Others have come up in other discussions for another book club, another I heard about from a New Yorker article, and I ordered all of them.

We were walking the dog the other day and I asked whichever children were accompanying me (it's not that I have that many, but they are all at home at the moment) how many books they thought we have in our house.  Sarah estimated ten thousand, which seemed to me to be a reasonable guess - almost every room has bookcases, and they are insufficient to hold all the books, which are also in boxes and stacks and spread across the floor where stacks collapsed.  When Caroline was in kindergarten, she was recruited to participate in the kindergarten cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a U.S. Department of Education-sponsored study that included periodic in person assessments, teacher questionnaires, and telephone interviews of parents.  One question they always asked me was how many children's books we had in our home; I remember estimating eight hundred the first time I was asked and two thousand years later -- the interviewers always seemed surprised; not skeptical, just surprised.

Most of those have been cleared out now - they went to neighbors, to neighborhood preschools and to Morningside Elementary and to book drives for other schools and maybe some of them to Goodwill -- but we all are accumulators of books, and the result is apparent in almost every room.  I have been thinking about this recently not because I am concerned about the clutter (which I should be more than I am) but because I now know that it is hopeless that I will every get everything read that I intend to read.

Years ago (I don't even remember when) I used to keep track of the books I read on 3 by 5 inch index cards.  After that there was a notebook; I don't know what happened to either that or the 3 by 5 cards.  Then there was nothing for a long time (which may have had something to do with having children) and then there was Goodreads.  I liked being able to easily add a book to the list of books I want to read, and then move them, one at a time, from "Want to Read" to "Currently Reading" to "Read." And then there are the reading challenges, setting goals for how many books you plan to read, and periodically checking how you're doing.  One recent year I set a goal of fifty, and came no where near it.  This year's goal was 26, but I have been reading more (I have periodically sworn off watching television news, this year, and have consciously tried to read instead) and I am now at forty books read in 2017, and may finish that book on the Kindle by the end of the year (or not).

But here's the calculation I just did.  Let's say, for purposes of discussion, that I have another thirty years of reading ahead of me (which would get me to an age older than both of my long-lived parents) - and I managed to read an average of fifty books a year for those thirty years.  That is only fifteen hundred books, for the rest of my life - and I just got eleven books for Christmas (okay, so one was a book on hydroponic gardening that is more of a reference book and probably won't be read cover-to-cover) and since Christmas I've bought five more, including the one I am currently reading on my Kindle.

I really am fine with getting rid of most of them, after I've read them - I regularly pass them along to someone else, or leave them in a neighborhood Little Free Library, or drop them off in a Better World Books donation box.  Our house is not full to the rafters with books we've read (although some of them we have) but with books we mean to read.  So I guess this means I should stop writing, right now, and start reading - because I can't really do too much about the thirty years, at this point, but maybe I can increase the fifty.  Fifteen hundred is just not a big enough number.

Not My Neighborhood

When Caroline was in kindergarten, she (and we) were asked to participate in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.  This study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, followed a group of kindergartners from the class of 1998-1999 through 8th grade.  Study staff met with Caroline several times at school and they probably got input from her teachers as well (although I don't remember that for sure).  What I do remember were the long telephone interviews, asking about who was in the household and who took care of her.  There were questions over the years about how many children's books we had in the house.  As all three kids got older, there were more and more, and I remember one interviewer seemed incredulous in one of the later interviews when I estimated it at 2,000.  That probably was a low number, in retrospect, given how many boxes and bags full of books we've given away to pretty much anyone we could get to take them over the years.  We've given some to neighbors and boxes and boxes of them have gone to Morningside Elementary.  Some have gone to one of the green Better World Books bins around town.

One day last week someone on Noble Drive posted a note on the Morningside-Lenox Park email list requesting book donations for an elementary school in West Atlanta.  Last year the PTA at that school had sponsored a reading event and there was lots of interest from the students; in the course of this, it became apparent that there was a big unmet need in many children's homes for books.  So someone in my neighborhood sent out an email, asking us all to check our bookshelves, and so Iain and I did that on Saturday.    

I delivered the books on Sunday.  That overfilled box in the front are the books that I brought, but clearly we weren't the only family with books to donate.  I'm glad there was such a good response to this very worthwhile effort.

On the way home I was thinking about all the things we do with books that we're through with -- pretty much anything but throw them away (although I've done that too).  And then I drove past the Little Free Library that one of our neighbors has placed between the sidewalk and the curb in front of their house at Cumberland and Reeder.  We've left books there, too, as well as in the one on North Pelham.  Of course a Little Free Library is no substitute for a public library, but it's not intended to be; it's a way to pass along a book you don't want to keep to a neighbor who would enjoy it -- which certainly is a good thing to do.

Except in Leawood, Kansas, where a family had built a Little Free Library in their front yard, and then were informed by the city that the structure was in violation of a city ordinance prohibiting structures in front yards.  (I can only assume that bird houses are prohibited as well.)  According to the city, there had been complaints from neighbors.  One can only wonder what kind of neighborhood results in complaints like these, which blogger Scott Doyon cited from news reports. 

"Why do we pay taxes for libraries and have those boxes on our streets? In a blighted area? Sure, put them everywhere. We’re not a poor area. We don’t need them."

"First, there was just a library. Then, a bench was placed next to it. I think people were concerned there would be more and more stuff at their front yard."

The Kansas City Star editorial got it just right. "Neighbors who might be worried about them should wander over and borrow a book."

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article590071.html#storylink=cpy

Last week the Leawood City Council unanimously approved a temporary exemption from the ordinance for Little Free Libraries.  So the Collins family's little library is legal in Leawood until October 20.  I'm not sure what happens then.

Thankfully, that's not my neighborhood.  Need something to read?  Lots of books to choose from, just around the corner.  And when you're done with it, you can pass it along to another neighbor.

One Week in the Neighborhood

Last Wednesday night Tom and the girls were out of town, so Iain and I took in Food Truck Wednesday on North Highland.  This was our first time to try it and it was fun.  We got sandwiches from MIX’d UP and split an order of classic fries.  My lamb burger with tzatziki sauce was excellent, but with the large bun there seemed to be too much bread, so I just didn't eat all of it.  Iain got a spicy chicken sandwich that he said was quite good.  We hadn't brought folding chairs (note to self for next time) so we sat on the curb at the back of the parking lot.  Afterwards we got popsicles from King of Pops and ate them on the way home.

On Saturday Iain and I made our Saturday morning trip to Alon’s and the Morningside Farmer’s Market.  Lettuce and arugula and heritage zucchini and cherry tomatoes from Crystal Organic Farm, blueberries and green onions and tomatoes and giant banana peppers (or peppers that looked like giant banana peppers) from D & A Farm, and Italian sausage from Riverview Farms.

Later that morning I went looking for the other Little Free Library in the neighborhood; after I wrote about the one we found at Cumberland and Reeder, I heard from a neighbor that there was also one on North Pelham, and a few day earlier the girls told me they had spotted it and told me where to look for it.  So I found it, between Pine Ridge and the traffic circle, adjacent to the sidewalk and facing the street.

That afternoon the girls and I went to the Goat Farm Arts Center to hear part of the Chamber Cartel's performance of Erik Satie's Vexations.  No one really knows what Erik Satie envisioned when he wrote the three lines that constitute this piece and its accompanying instructions ("In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities"), but since the 1960s when John Cage and Lewis Lloyd organized a relay team of pianists for the work's first public performance, this has been interpreted to mean that Satie intended for the theme and its two variations to be played 840 times. According to the Chamber Cartel's program notes, "the piece was once attempted by a soloist who, having experienced intense hallucinations as a result, stopped after only 15 hours."

When we got there, Cecilia Trode and Chamber Cartel's Caleb Herron were playing.  At precisely 6 p.m., the musical baton (figuratively speaking) was passed to the Resile Quartet, a saxophone quartet.  The venue -- Goodson Yard at the Goat Farm Arts Center -- was gorgeous and the audience small but appreciative.

I decided I really wanted to be there for the end of the performance, so I went back late Sunday morning and heard Bora Moon, Johnny Brown, and Robert Marshall on clarinet, flute, and cello (not necessarily in that order); they were wonderful.  

Caleb Herron was back for the last hour (he actually played for 5 hours of the 24 hour performance) and was amazing, especially given he had not slept in over 24 hours.  He played the vibraphone (I think it's a vibraphone) with different mallets, then with bows like a string player would use, and finally with his hands, ending at precisely noon.  There was moment of silence between when the music stopped and we started to clap (no one wanted to be that awkward concertgoer who claps at the wrong time) but it was the right time and Mr. Herron looked happy but exhausted.  He said he was going to go home and get some sleep.

That night we made soup from the peppers that might or might not be banana peppers and a salad from our Farmers' Market lettuce, arugula, and tomatoes.  It was pretty good.  Afterwards Iain and I walked back to the Little Free Library at Cumberland and Reeder and I found a book I wanted to read.

Yesterday morning I walked to work, and there was a duck in the creek at Durand's Mill.  

So, it was a good week, except for my car getting totalled on Thursday.  But that's another post.

Something to Read

Iain is working on breaking in his new hiking boots, so this morning we headed off to Herbert Taylor Park.  He spotted it before I did, as we were walking down Cumberland toward North Highland, the Little Free Library at the intersection of Cumberland and Reeder.

Although I knew that there were some of these in the Atlanta area, this is the first one I'd seen, and it was a real treat to find it just a couple blocks from home.  Pop-up libraries are one of the ways people have re-purposed tiny bits of public space to better support neighborhoods and communities.  I don't know the story for how this particular pop-up library came to be in my neighborhood, but I was delighted to find it here.  

There are the books we keep (we have too many of those, in our house) and the books we read and then pass on to someone else or donate to Better World Books; we should go to the public library, but we don't, because it's too far to walk and it's not open on Sunday and book-buying is something we do for fun.  This morning I did look at the books in the box with the glass door and I didn't see anything I wanted to add to my already-too-tall pile of books I want to read.  But last weekend Iain cleaned out the large bookcase in his bedroom and right now we have two large boxes of books in our foyer, waiting to be passed on to someone with younger children.  So when we got back from our walk, I picked out a few and walked them up the street to add them to the collection.  

And the next time I'm walking by, I'll check again.  

A Second Chance for Books

When Sarah got back from Dresden week before last, she said she really wanted some ethnic food.  Tom had planned to make egg rolls for her the evening she got home, but with the delays in her flight out of Philadelphia, she didn't make it home til late; so Tom got some frozen ones and once they were cooked in the deep fat fryer they were apparently passable.  Then I think it was the next evening we went to The Cottage for dinner.  The Cottage is an Ethiopian restaurant in a former Burger King at East Rock Springs and Piedmont, and is one of Sarah's favorite restaurants.  I am not sure what Sarah ate in Germany, but apparently not Chinese or Ethiopian food.

While we were at the Cottage, I noticed it - in the corner of the parking lot, behind the taxis, was a green bin from Better World Books.  I'd seen one or two of these bins in other locations around Atlanta but had never figured out exactly what Better World Books was and how my book donation would support literacy and make a Better World.  But that weekend I'd spent a little time on Rhyne family history - my maternal grandmother is a Rhyne - and come across a reference to book about early German settlers in Pennsylvania that apparently included information about my Rhine/Rein/Reinau ancestors.  I found a copy on line, and one of the places that had it for sale was Better World Books.  So I ordered it, and in the process learned about Better World Books and those green bins that are around Atlanta.


It's a business that keeps books out of landfills and sells them to people who want them, and partners with groups supporting literacy efforts worldwide.  As someone whose heart ached when I saw books in the dumpster in front of our house (for the record, the only ones *I* put there were guidebooks that were so out of date as to be useless but not so out of date as to be interesting), I am so glad to be able to feel good about purging the shelves of old college Required Reading and some of the quasi-academic books I've accumulated over the years but I know I will never read again (if I ever read them in the first place).  We've taken many boxes of books to Goodwill but I have no idea if Goodwill actually has a model that can help these books make their way to someone who wants them.

But Better World Books does, and earlier this week I dropped off a few books in the green bin behind the Cottage.  I'm cleaning out my office, anticipating a move to a new, smaller office, and we still have stuff piled up all over the place at home.  At least now I know something I can do with books and feel good about it.

Remembering September 11

Seven years ago today, Tom was with the kids at the dentist. He called me and told me that a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I assumed an accident, and a little plane; he called back not long afterwards to say that a second plane had struck the other tower. It wasn't long afterwards that I remember seeing the first tower collapse, on the television screen in a conference room in my office building. I remember later hearing that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, and someone in the office trying to call family in the state, and her fear, when her call did not go through. That night emailing an acquaintance who worked at the Pentagon (she was all right) and another whose office I thought was in lower Manhattan (he was all right too, although the offices were not).

I remember for a few days afterwards, the normally sullen, aggressive drivers among whom I have to make may way to work each day seemed a little less, well, sullen and aggressive. A little less likely to honk the horn for a moment's delay when the light turned green, a little more likely to let someone in who needed to change lanes. It only lasted a couple of days, though.

Before September 11, the newspapers had been full of lurid speculation about the congressman from California and a missing intern. I remember standing out in the street a few nights later, talking to my friend Carol, saying that I would be okay with being scared, as long as the public discourse sayed on to things that mattered instead of the kind of stuff that had been in play before.

Tom and I watched Charlie Wilson's War a couple of months ago, the story about how a Congressman from Texas got the U.S. Congress to support the covert war in Afghanistan against the Soviets during the 1980s. He could get Congress to appropriate ever increasing amounts to support the military action, but once the Soviets withdrew, there was no interest in building the schools that might have secured the peace. The movie ends with a great quote from Congressman Wilson, something to the effect that we won the war, and then we screwed everything up.

One of the books I am currently reading is Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Greg Mortenson tried to climb K2, didn't make it to the summit, and on his way back got lost. He ended up in a village that didn't have a school, and decided that he would come back and build one there. I have not gotten to the part of the book where he actually gets the school built, but on the back of the book it says that over the next decade Mortensen built 55 schools " - especially for girls - in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban."

Greg Mortenson is still building schools. According to the acknowledgements at the end of the book, it costs "$1 a month for one child's education in Pakistan or Afghanistan, a penny to buy a pencil, and a teacher's salary averages $1 a day." Contributions go to the Central Asia Institute, http://www.ikat.org/, in Bozeman, Montana.

It's been seven years. This year, I think I will remember those events of seven years ago not by flying the flag or by a moment of silence for those who died when the planes crashed, but with my checkbook. If you want to, too, here's the address:

Central Asia Institute
P.O. Box 7209
Bozeman, MT 59771

Primary prevention is almost always best.

Easy Ways to Save the Earth

Last night Tom and I heard Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist who wrote The World is Flat, at the Atlanta International School. Mr. Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America, was just published. We bought the book and stood in line after the talk to get it signed, but I haven't started reading it yet. (This was the first book signing that I have ever attended where there were police officers there - we weren't that rowdy a crowd. Were they that concerned that people were going to cut in line?)

He gave a great talk. He talked about the big global trends - rapidly growing demand for energy around the world, climate change, oil-enriched dictatorships - that were shaping the future of our country and the rest of the world. It is very clear, he said, that we cannot drill our way out of this, nor can we conserve our way out - it will take radical change in policy to support a radical change in the economics of energy that could ultimately drive the innovation that could develop the new technology that is needed to solve the problem and lead the way to a future that is not dependent on us sending all our money to countries that hate us so we can burn their oil to power our country and destroy the planet.

He listed the book titles you can find on Google under "Easy Ways to Save the Earth" - there are a lot of them, and they are all wrong, because the things that need to be done are not going to be easy. They will be disruptive, painful, and scary. They will require focus and longterm vision and investment in the future that has been in short supply among the leadership of our country. What's needed is revolutionary change, not evolutionary change, and in revolutions, someone always gets hurt. Right now, all this talk about "green" is just rebranding; it's something the marketing people dreamed up. It's a party.

Which leads one to the obvious question, what can we do. The answer seemed to be get involved, demand that our country's leaders do a better job and actually address the real threats to our country. Of course, we have been replacing our lightbulbs with compact fluorescents, and I've got those cloth bags in the back of my car that I take with me to Kroger. I'll keep doing those things not because they are going to be the solution but because they will keep reminding me that we need a solution.