Welcome to my Monday morning book blog. Every Monday morning I will talk about a book I've read during the previous week, sometimes from a literary viewpoint or a writer's perspective, sometimes simply what excites me about the book. I read all kinds of things — nonfiction, literary fiction, genre fiction, poetry, backs of cereal boxes-so you never know what may show up here. Feedback is welcome; email bmorrison@bmorrison.com. I may publish some responses in future blog entries, so if you don't want your comments published, please note that in your email. Join me as we start off the week thinking about books.

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Divisidero, by Michael Ondaatje
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis, by Cara Black
A Tidewater Morning, by William Styron
Playlist 2011
Best books I read in 2011
The Sun, Sy Safransky Editor

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An Interlude · May 31, 07:34 AM by B. Morrison

One of the exercises in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is to go for a week without reading. Impossible! I thought the first time I tried it. Yet I have found value in periodically emptying my mind of other people’s words.

I listen to the frogs at night and the birds in the morning. I check out the trees that have fallen or died since last year. I see that new moss has grown over parts of the path, and the ladies’ slippers are blooming. I count the goslings being taught the trail between the ponds by their proud parents. Because the ponds are very high this year, the logs that make a crude bulkhead are under water, accelerating their decay. I cannot put any weight on them.

Some things are unchanged: the ruddy sky reflected on the water, the rustle of pine needles in the wind, the tapping of rain on the roof. I sweep spiderwebs from the corners and mouse droppings from behind the books.

Shakespeare wrote of “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,/Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” There are stories enough here for me. This week, anyway.

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