Our Hearts Are Restless

Fourth of July weekend with my family means camping.  Over the last few years, we've explored several Indiana state parks, where we hike, hang out, and chill for a few days.  2016 brought a new development, as my parents decided to invest in a tent for my sister and I, so as not to cram four people into an RV meant for two.  The first thing Meredith and I figured out how to do is attach a flashlight to the ceiling so that we can read after the parental units have gone to bed.  It's the important things in life. This tent could only be improved by the addition of a green door with a round knocker and a G-rune. Despite a bit of a cloudy chill over the weekend, it was quiet, peaceful, and refreshing for all of us.  For me, I think the change of scenery was the principal attraction, as I've been in a city for the majority of the last year.  Living simply and unplugged under the trees for a few days was a much-needed change of pace.  Although, when w...

If you're a bibliophile, you've probably dreamed of owning - or at least walking into - a library like the one from the Beast's castle: There's something intoxicating about the thought of so many adventures, waiting for discovery behind their polychromatic spines.  Unfortunately, chances are that, like me, there's not a snowball's chance in Hades that you'll ever actually own that many books. The next best option?  Swing over to John K. King Used & Rare Books in Detroit.  This book lover's paradise is curled in four floors of a repurposed glove factory.  It's cramped, dusty, not air conditioned, eccentric, distinctly old-fashioned, and relies on red-aproned attendants to help you find your favorite books among newspaper clippings and bric-à-brac.  In other words, it's all about the books!  And books there are in abundance, on seven-foot shelves, stacked in corners, piled along the walls, and displayed in glass cases.  Navigation is tric...

Welcome to July's edition of An Open Book linkup!  I've got a lot to share this month. Two other book nerds were aghast when I told them I hadn't read Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo . The reason was that The Three Musketeers had scarred me as a kid, and it took a lot of bibliophilic peer pressure to get me anywhere near another Dumas. I took the plunge, finally - and if CMC didn't hit any other superlatives in my book, it definitely wins the prize of The Book that Took Me Forever to Read. I started the massive tome (okay fine, it was an e-book) in mid-May, thinking to have it done within a week or two. Took me over a month to get through it. Dumas' skill is readily apparent, opium trips and irritating not-quite-heroes aside. He manages a dozen primary characters and several supporting plot lines, successfully wrapping up all the loose threads with neatly bookended scenes. Simultaneously, he manages to create in Edmund Dantes a sort of soci...