The Magical Book Box

I come by my penchant for books honestly; doubtless it’s a combination of nature and nurture from both of my parents. When I was growing up, my dad would periodically order a box of books. This was in the days before Amazon, when ordering books required a wee bit more effort. My recollection is that he’d have them delivered to his office in town and would bring them home from work. After supper, we’d clear the dishes, Dad would bring the box of books to the dining table and slice it open with his Craftsman pocketknife, and we’d lift out the new arrivals, one by one. The boxes always contained an assortment that reflected my parents’ varied tastes: astronomy and other sciences, photography, explorations of the English language, humor. (I remember spending a good bit of time with the books of both Charles Schultz and Charles Addams when I was growing up, which probably explains a few things.)

For a long time, I thought all families did this kind of book stuff.

I still love boxes with books. I always get a happy jolt when I see the mailman or UPS guy pull up, bearing a package with the imprint of any of the several places I order from, occasionally including England or Canada (when I’m too impatient to wait for a book to be published in the U.S.). I still love opening the box and pulling out the volume I’ve been anticipating, sometimes for weeks.

Here are a couple of the most recent tasty treats that have arrived on my doorstep.

St. Margaret’s Gospel-book by Rebecca Rushforth (what a great name!) Subtitled The Favourite Book of an Eleventh-Century Queen of Scots, this recently published book is part of the wondrously well-illustrated “Treasures of the Bodleian Library” series. St. Margaret was a relatively rare creature: a married woman who was later designated a saint. (Yes, I gather that marriage makes unofficial saints of lots of folks…) According to one source, Margaret desired to live as a nun rather than marry King Malcolm (whom Shakespeare portrays in Macbeth as the rightful heir to the throne of his murdered father Dunstan). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that God would not allow Margaret such a life because she would do more good as a queen. She gained status as a saint largely for her reputation as a woman of deep faith and good works; only one miracle is connected with her. Charmingly, it involves a book. It’s said that Margaret, who spent much time in lectio divina (sacred reading), had a book that she treasured above all others, a small, jewel-encrusted volume that contained excerpts from the Gospels. Once, as she was traveling, the person who was carrying the book carelessly let it fall into a river. Lost for some time, the book was later discovered miraculously intact and virtually undamaged, “so much so that it scarcely seemed to have been touched by the water!” her biographer exults. “At once,” he goes on to tell, “the book was brought back to the queen, and the miracle related to her, and she gave thanks to Christ; and from then on the queen loved the book even more than she had before.” (From the Life of St Margaret, attributed to Turgot.)

In the 19th century, a woman scholar was the first to piece together the historical evidence that the book described in this miracle is the one that resides in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.

Also in a recent magical book box:

Illuminated Manuscripts of Medieval Spain by Mireille Mentré. Published in 1996 by Thames & Hudson, this yummy volume offers a lavish look into the manuscripts that emerged from the intriguing confluence of cultures in medieval Spain, particularly between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Some of the most impressive illuminated manuscripts, and the most prevalent, were created by monastic scribes and artists who turned their attention to the Apocalypse, also known as the Revelation to John. Drawing influence from the visual culture of the Islamic community that ruled Spain, as well as from Byzantine, Celtic, and other styles, the Spanish monks created an art form that came to be known as Mozarabic.

It’s pretty wild and wonderful stuff. With their energetic style and vivid palette that differ markedly from the more staid (but also charming and powerful) illuminated Apocalypses that would later emerge in England, the Spanish manuscripts give the impression that their artists absorbed John’s otherworldly visions directly into their veins and poured them straight onto the page.

See for yourself. There are great online resources that offer images and background on the Spanish Apocalypses, including the British Library’s Online Gallery page about the Silos Apocalypse and the current online exhibition “Apocalypse Then: Medieval Illuminations from the Morgan” at the Morgan Library’s website.

Or, better yet, you can order a book in a magical box.

Books by My Bed (A Very Abbreviated List)

Seeing as it’s one of the few pieces of actual furniture here in this cozy studio apartment (which has certain advantages in the Housekeeping Department), my futon occupies a pretty central role in my domestic environment. Also known as The Place Where I Sleep&Read&Eat&Watch TV, my futon possesses a certain gravitational pull that tends to draw lots of stuff—and by stuff I mostly mean books—toward it. Here are a few selections from the stacks of books presently in orbit around my futon:

The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. Drawing on her years of teaching the weekly Parsha (readings from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible) in Jerusalem, Zornberg offers an intriguing reflection on, as she puts it, “the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, where the origins of all things are to be found.” She engages the sacred text in the company of others who have pondered and wrestled with it; as she listens deeply into the text, she turns her ear toward the voices of those who have lived with it across the centuries, who have studied it and prayed it and carried it in their bones. She acknowledges the wide range of tools that she uses in excavating the scriptures, from literature and anthropology to the Talmud and hasidic meditations. In her introduction to the book, Zornberg writes about reading the sacred text in such a way that we encounter our own lives within and between its words. She makes a distinction between introducing ourselves into the texts—an act that’s called eisegesis (literally to “lead in,” to read our own biases into a text)—and finding ourselves within them. “What is hidden,” she writes, “is, essentially, the reader’s most intimate life, the things and words of the night, fears and longings and questionings. It is these that I have tried to ‘hear’ from within the text of the Torah.”

The Holy Way: Practices for a Simple Life by Paula Huston. I’m an oblate (lay associate) of St. Brigid of Kildare Monastery, a community that draws from Methodist and Benedictine traditions. A significant piece of our life together as oblates, and a way that we stay connected in the midst of our geographic distance from one another, is our practice of talking together by conference call once a month. Much of our conversation revolves around something we’re reading together. We’ve recently started The Holy Way, written by a woman who is an oblate of New Camaldoli Hermitage at Big Sur, California. Huston shapes each chapter around a theme from the Christian monastic tradition; her chapter titles include “Silence: The Way of the Cenobite,” “Devotion: The Way of the Psalm Singer,” and “Generosity: The Way of the Servant.” In the opening chapter, “Solitude: The Way of the Hermit,” Huston describes the beginning of her search for solitude in the midst of a life that’s intimately intertwined with others. She writes,

Once solitude had a grip on me, once I experienced the clarity it brought, I couldn’t get enough of it. My longtime ache for Thoreau’s little cabin now had a name; my secret yearning for aloneness had an explanation. Perhaps I was not such an oddball after all; perhaps there were many others like me who craved solitude without knowing exactly what it was we were craving.

Ashworth Hall by Anne Perry. Mysteries are my brain candy. Just finished this one today. It’s from Perry’s series that features Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, an intrepid couple living in 19th-century England. It wasn’t among my favorite Anne Perry novels but provided a pleasant diversion.

Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging. A gift from my sweetheart Gary. Oooohhh, all the cool pictures…