The house is all in darkness except for this corner bedroom
where the lighthouse of a table lamp is guiding
my eyes through the narrow channels of print,

and the only movement in the night is the slight
swirl of curtains, the easy lift and fall of my breathing,
and the flap of pages as they turn in the wind of my hand.

Is there a more gentle way to go into the night
than to follow an endless rope of sentences
and then to slip drowsily under the surface of a page

into the first tentative flicker of a dream,
passing out of the bright precincts of attention
like cigarette smoke passing through a window screen?

All late readers know this sinking feeling of falling
into the liquid of sleep and then rising again
to the call of a voice that you are holding in your hands,

as if pulled from the sea back into a boat
where a discussion is raging on some subject or other,
on Patagonia or Thoroughbreds or the nature of war.

Is there a better method of departure by night
than this quiet bon voyage with an open book,
the sole companion who has come to see you off,

to wave you into the dark waters beyond language?
I can hear the rush and sweep of fallen leaves outside
where the world lies unconscious, and I can feel myself

dissolving, drifting into a story that will never be written,
letting the book slip to the floor where I will find it
in the morning when I surface, wet and streaked with
daylight.

-from Questions About Angels, poems by Billy Collins

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Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I change the rules a little bit to suit my own purposes: I hand pick the teaser, rather than choose one randomly. I also very frequently post more than two sentences. :)

-From At Home by Bill Bryson, page 129

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Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I change the rules a little bit to suit my own purposes: I hand pick the teaser, rather than choose one randomly. I also very frequently post more than two sentences. :)

Today, since it seems like a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon activity, I thought I’d share a few favorites I’ve found lately. I will advise you to proceed with caution though… while compiling this post I bought three different sets. Many bookplates are too cute to consider resisting.

VINTAGE: $15.00 for 30-40, at RetroNorth

HANDMADE: $15.75 for 24 bookplates, blank or personalized, at The Oddest Owl

HANDMADE: $4.00 for 8 bookplates, at adorapop

VINTAGE: $8.00 for 25 bookplates, at Vintageworks

HANDMADE: $15.00 for custom Rubber Stamp, at AsspocketProductions

HANDMADE: $6.00 for 10 bookplates, at phoebe1

VINTAGE: $19.00 for 25 bookplates, at finiHome

VINTAGE: $16.00 for 30 bookplates, at mushroom and moss vintage

VINTAGE: $3.50 for 4 bookplates, from cOveTableCuriOsitIEs

To Begin Again by M.F.K. Fisher
The Best of Frank O’Connor edited by Julian Barnes
Legendary Ireland: Journey Through Celtic Places and Myths by Eithne Massey
Questions About Angels by Billy Collins
44 Irish Short Stories edited by Devin A. Garrity
The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home by Jane Brocket
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Finny by Justin Kramon

Books Read:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling  (re-read)
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Pride & Prejudice (Graphic Novel) retold by Nancy Butler (library)
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (library)
Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson (library)
Wilson by Daniel Clowes (library)

Books Read:

The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald (library)
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
The Lovers by Vendela Vida
The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin (library)
A Secret Map of Ireland by Rosita Boland
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld (library)

Congrats! I hope everyone who reads this book enjoys it as much as I did.

In the meantime, remember that you can still enter my giveaway to win a signed ARC copy of Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, right here. It will be open until August 18th.

Below are some vintage postcards from Ireland, found on the Library of Congress’s Flickr page.

Sláinte!

I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Roach speak at an author breakfast at Book Expo this spring. She is a gifted speaker and tremendously funny. She comes across as very personable and intimate, even when speaking to a room full of hundreds of people. That style comes through in her writing as well, making an essentially scientific book come alive with warmth, humor, and personality.

The focus of Packing for Mars is not on the science of how we space travel, but the science of what happens to humans when we space travel. Topics covered include: selecting astronauts who will thrive in space, motion sickness, hygiene, eating & nutrition, bone loss, surviving malfunctions and re-entry, and (perhaps most humorously) the complications of going to the bathroom in space.

This book is a great read regardless of your level of interest in NASA, space travel, or astronauts. (Although didn’t most of us want to be astronauts at some point?) It’s fascinating to read about the effects being in zero gravity for extended periods of time have on our body and mind. Learning more about how NASA tests these effects on their equipment and astronauts is equally as interesting. And the key selling point to all this is that Mary Roach makes it extremely fun to read.

To read a Teaser Tuesday passage I posted from Packing for Mars, click here.

PACKING FOR MARS GIVEAWAY

To enter to win an review copy signed by Mary Roach, please leave a comment and share what comfort from Earth you would miss most during space travel.

For up to 2 extra chances to win, tweet and/or blog post a link to this giveaway, and leave another comment here with the link(s).

This giveaway will be open through August 18, 2010, and is open worldwide.

From Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden, pages 8-9

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Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I change the rules a little bit to suit my own purposes: I hand pick the teaser, rather than choose one randomly. I also very frequently post more than two sentences. :)

I got many treats at the library yesterday – mainly due to their recently expanded Graphic Novels section, which made me incredibly happy to discover.

From top to bottom:

Circle of Friends DVD (Starring Chris O’Donnell and Minnie Driver) – Recommended to me by a friend, a must watch in prep/excitement for my trip to Ireland.

Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson – a graphic Travel Journal by the author of one of my favorite graphic novels, Blankets.

Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan – Impulse grab, short memoir that looks endearing and funny.

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden – This is the only book that I actually planned on looking for and checking out. It’s included in Barnes and Noble’s summer Discover New Authors selection, and captured my interest.

The Beats: A Graphic History edited by Paul Buhle – A good find in newly expanded Graphic Novels section.

Pride & Prejudice (graphic novel) adapted by Nancy Butler – Another good find in the Graphic Novels section.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes – Spotted this and realized it didn’t make sense that I haven’t read it, given how much I enjoy Graphic Novels.

Since a lot of these are graphic novels*, and the ones that aren’t are fairly short, I’m hoping to read (and watch, in the case of the DVD) all of these before they’re due – something that is rarely possible with most of the stacks I bring home from the library.

*I think this post now holds the record for the number of times I’ve mentioned graphic novels in one blog post. I’ll add it to the tags just to be sure. :)