talkin' books

The big book present I got for Christmas was not an actual book, technically, but an iPad, which eventually will bring anything I want to the desk. Right now it's dormant, so Gay can do the mail – Earthlink only allows two devices to be on at the same address, evidently.

Of actual printed books I didn't do too badly, either. A big picture book I coveted when I saw it at the Emily Dickinson bookstore in Amherst, American Writers at Home, which demonstrates that all other American writers were neater than me, or at least became neat after they died. Going through the table of contents, I find one unfamiliar name: Sarah Orne Jewett, best known for The Country of the Pointed Fires. And the Jewett House, I suppose. I also got Helen Vendler's new Dickinson, and the first volume of Mark Twain's new autobiography. Gay also got me The Untold War, Nancy Sherman's book subtitled "Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers."

On the science side I got Riding Rockets; The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope; Sizing Up the Universe, and The Solar System, which covers just about everything. In between science and art, I got, no kidding, The Science of Art, which is about optics and art.

Gay gave me a cool new toy, an iPad. More about it as I learn about it. Sort of like a cross between the Air and the iPhone. Powerful, though, with a fine-grain screen the size of a large paperback, 5X7", I think.

Two neat fountain pens, too; one from Gay and one from Barbara. Something I really need! And a nice wooden pochade box, which I will stock with good oil paints. It's very neat and bicycle-sized. A complete set of the Sopranos shows that I haven't seen, 21 episodes.

I went out this morning to write with the Pelikan Gay gave me, and it worked very well in spite of having been exposed to the cold. Near freezing, very unusual in these parts. It may get down to twenty tonight. Snow this morning just north of here. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave the bike in the garage and drive to the coffee house.

Joe