Homage to postcards and forgotten bookmarks.

In high school, and college, my friend Tracy and I would exchange silly things in the mail: she had/has a creative flair I so admire. In 2009, she and I reconnected, and I am pleased to say she still is a genius.  Back then, she was blogging and I sent her pictures of all of the things I'd kept over the years.  (You can read her review of these items here).  I found another one today in my copy of The Vegetarian Epicure. Appropriate, no?  It's a George Bernard Shaw quote:

"When we ourselves are the graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?"

Speaking of The Vegetarian Epicure, that was one of the first veg cookbooks I owned and loved.  I know someone gave it to me, used, and I wish I could remember who.  But it had this fantastic quote at the beginning that I referred to a lot when I was a young vegetarian trying to explain myself to other people who questioned my eating habits.  Anna Thomas said:

"Good food is a celebration of life, and it seems absurd to me that in celebrating life we should take life.  That's why I don't eat flesh..."

I recently read Forgotten Bookmarks by Michael Popek, a used bookseller who documents his finds on his blog: Forgottenbookmarks.com   As someone who also uses odd found items to mark my place in books (although I do admit I sometimes commit the sin of folding down a corner of a paperback) I loved the fact that Popek included pictures of not only the bookmarks, but also the books wherein they were found.

I just realized that the deceased mother in Beautiful Creatures (Lila Evers Wate) also used odd found items to mark her place in books.  At one point, Ethan finds a sock in a book, and knows his mother has been there.  Maybe there's a club for us all to join.

This past month, I haven't been reading as much, nor as often as I would like.  One book I picked up and read was a re-read, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.  Imagine my nice surprise when I found this- a left behind bookmark from the last time I'd read the book- presumably on a trip to see my good friend, Kim, in NYC.

 And lastly, I've given my daughter my Jetta.  She and her boyfriend cleaned it out, and found these, some eagle feathers I've collected on my hikes in the woods nearby.  I ended up sticking them in a copy of Steinbeck's East of Eden, and was tickled to find that the page I opened to included the sentence:

 "A hawk driving down on a chicken with doubled fists did not make him turn his head."

Perfect.  Just Perfect.