Disclaimer:

Many stories herein are subject to the faulty, and sometimes creative, memory of the blog owner and should not be taken as factual, although the names and events are real! Kind of.

Monday, July 26, 2010

I love Pottery Barn Catalogs!

A few times a year I have the delight of receiving a Pottery Barn catalog in the mail.  I never order anything from it but spend a bit of time (actually quite a bit of time) wishing I could buys some things and getting ideas for decorating.  I love how they use old junk made new--gears for lamp bases and huge old wooden bowls and big chunks of wood.  I also love how so much stuff is 'floral-ly' yet now flowery and prissy.

But my favorite thing in the catalogs is how so many books are in each of the photographs.



Books!
In a lovely inviting stack near the couch...


Books!
Enticing me from shelves and in desks....


Books!  
Waiting to be devoured next to the buffet in the dining room....


Books!
Piled under the beds and on nightstands....


My very favorite thing!  
Book ends--I might have to go ahead and buy these!


Nothing makes a house more homey than books.  Books on bookshelves, on tables, by the bed, in the kitchen.....I love it when it appears that wherever I am in the house, I could find something to pass the time.  

There is nothing like a good book that will take you away to another world, another time; to get you inside another person's skin; to give you a glimpse of another person's thoughts....

Books and reading have broadened some of my personal opinions and narrowed others.
They have allowed me to travel back in time and discover what it might have really been like in Queen Elizabeth's court,  or in the early days of the Church in Rome, or as a woman alone on the frontier. Books have let me visit the hot African savanna when there is snow outside my window.  Stories have allowed me to experience frigid cold when our air conditioner was not working.  

They have brought me laughter and tears and introduced me to some of my best friends.  Discussing books can bring common ground into a diverse group of people.  

The power of words, the possibilities of combinations of them, delight me.

I have to teach an hour of remedial reading this year at the high school.  I'm very nervous about it.  My hearing loss is a handicap in the classroom and I really have no idea of what I am doing from a 'reading specialist' standpoint.  My strategy for my future students is to help them find a book that will interest them enough to finish it.  If they have to read the first two chapters from lots of different books before they find one, so be it.  

If I can just get them to find ONE book that they will finish.  Just one story that will lead them to plow through words they might not know.  Just one author that will turn a phrase in such a way as to catch their interest.

Then I might be just a tiny bit successful.

(all photos in this post were copied from the Pottery Barn website)

5 comments:

Terry @ La Bella Vie said...

OH me too! Love PB anything but rarely buy although did buy the pillows on my bench we just made...loved the "vintage-y" look they have,

Terry

Travis Erwin said...

My wife can spend an hour looking at a single catalog. i give them five minutes tops.

Anonymous said...

Very true! Books are wonderful and I have used them to "decorate" as well . . . especially baby rooms!
Good luck with your class . . . I am sure you will do great! :)
Fun Fact: I have a hearing problem, too! Who knew?! :)

Kara said...

I love those book ends :)

I need some recommendations for a few good fiction books. something light to read while nursing the babe once he arrives, to keep me awake :)any ideas?

WiseWords&Whatever said...

Interesting to see the number of books included in the photographs!! Wondering how many students in your remedial reading class need reading help or actually are "aliterate" (able but not interested)! Thinking about some online resources since you have a computer lab in your library. Let me know if you are interested in some edtech ideas. :)
Connie

One Last Thought.......

Pleasant words are a honeycomb;
sweet to the soul and healing to the body.
Proverbs 16:
24