fields of flowers

this morning i wish i was out in a field, under sky-stretches & clouds, reading a good book.

{image via here}

literary looming

while doing some city-walking research this weekend, i stumbled upon a pretty wild fact: london's senate house--a building built in the 1930s for the university of london & used as the ministry of information during WWII--was the inspiration for george orwell's ministry of truth in his novel 1984! when the art deco style building was originally finished in 1937 it was the second-tallest in london--and let me just say, it definitely has an impressive sort of height & loom. it also turns out that Z had been taking a seminar there this whole past semester, and had no idea! we dropped by the building (located in the ever-literary bloomsbury) for a sneak peak. and wow. i love how the lamps glitter out the thin windows: a morse-code of lights. on the whole it's beautifully dour & imposing.

this morning i am off for the haircutting that was canceled before our trip. wish me luck!

read the printed word

i have to admit, there is nothing like the smell of library. of new book. of old book. of books all sitting in a row (the best repeated object, of course!). so yeah, i'm a super promoter of words printed on paper and of books which fit snug in purses & pockets (instead of just phones). as a writer, afterall, my living depends on people actually buying the future books i produce, not just stealing them off the internets. so: save the pages! save the writers! and add this to your blog if you, too, love printed pages as opposed to just scrolling screens of letters. for the record, if there were no more library books, i would truly miss wondering who had taken the book out before me and occasionally wishing i could meet them!

(p.s. Z & i fully intend to have our dining room be in the library of our future grown-up house).

{image via calem.}

a factless autobiography

while traveling around this week Z & i are reading the book of disquiet, one of the most famous works by portuguese writer fernando pessoa. we chose the fragmentary disquiet over some of his other writing because we hoped it would allow us to read in fits and bursts while we scoped out the city (and some of the cafes where he wrote!). i'll let you know my thoughts when we return.