One for the Books.

Today: lightheartedness before the weekend in the form of Literalogue, a postcard and print series designed to help curious readers discover books they'll love. The collection showcases five centuries' worth of great writers, along with memorable quotes, facts, and handy lists of similar authors for those in search of their next great read. Lastly — in a strange and charming twist — the authors are grouped by literary movement according to color-coded noses: orange for the Naturalists, purple for the Aesthetics, lime green for the Beat Generation.

See more (and back the project) on Kickstarter.

Also, for fellow writers out there, I loved this list of "most important" advice from famous authors. This gem from Murakami stands out in particular: "Every time you write, ask yourself: Could this scene take place in a hot-air balloon? If the answer is yes, then it probably should.”

Have a wonderful weekend.

Books Illustrated.

Bob Eckstein's illustrations of New York City bookstores - complete with historical notes and anecdotes - are wonderful. I have so much affection for my neighborhood bookstore and had favorites in LA and Santa Cruz when I lived in those cities, too - as much as I love finding great material online, there's nothing quite like the thrill of browsing a book aisle, or the pleasure of turning a page.

View all of Eckstein's bookstores, here. (Part two is coming soon.)

See also:
-Drunk texts from famous authors.
-Weird books.
-Lynda Barry on why the arts matter: "For some reason, we think that poetry is this thing you do on the side, once you get your math done or your science done. Same thing with writing or any of the things we call “the arts” – there’s this idea that they’re just an elective, they’re just decoration, and they have nothing to do with our survival … or why we can stand to be here. That’s the reason I’ve made it to 53 – because of finding these things that poetry or painting or place contain. That’s the stuff of mental health, and we ignore it at our peril."

Wooden Winnie.

I posted about Japanese design firm Nendo just nine days ago, but when I saw this line of furniture inspired by Winnie-the-Pooh, I couldn't bear (no pun intended) to file it away for later. Created for Walt Disney Japan, the little wooden tables resemble characters from the story in simple, subtle ways. For instance, the Eeyore table wilts to the ground, and the Tigger piece has a little orange tail. 

Below, from top to bottom, is Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga and Roo, and Eeyore. See more, here.

Visit Nendo's website, here. 

Related: chocolate pencils (with a sharpener for shaving shreds of chocolate over a little round cake), and a chocolate paint set in flavors like melon, honey lemon, and green tea.

HC.

Valentine's Day is ten days behind us, but in the spirit of keeping romance alive through a cold and frosty winter, here's a line of handmade ceramics inspired by Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. I have to admit, I haven't read the book, but I love those painted faces, those swirls of blue and white, the overall literary fan-girliness of it all.

Shop more on Etsy, here. I also love this pink forest mug, these garden worms, this textured teepee, and this mysterious "small smokey vessel."

(PS: Two titles I am reading, and would highly recommend: No Regrets and The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 1. What are you reading?)

The Sea, the Sky, the Dreaming Katydids.

After a dazzling spring-like weekend - during which I attempted to sunbathe in a bright corner of a coffee shop and spent an evening kicking back at a neighborhood bar with this guy (name unknown) - it's winter again, with daytime highs hovering near freezing.

To focus on the positive: beautiful things happen when the temperature drops - biologist Jeff Bowman knows. On his way back from the North Pole in 2009, he found a blooming garden in the midst of an ice-cold sea. "Frost flowers," he tells NPR's Robert Krulwich. "They were everywhere."

Read more about the science behind frost flowers at NPR, here. Photos by Matthias Wietz.

More for Monday:

-My friend Maria (creator of these beautiful prints and calendars) was interviewed on Refinery29 last week. It's worth checking out for her outfits alone, and for her sky-blue toenails.
-Adrianna's doughnut ice cream, served with doughnuts on the side - and sprinkles, of course.
-And this, by Shirley Jackson via Tin House: "…even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."

Holiday Gift Ideas 3: Foxes, Feathers, Beauty Every Day.

Tis the season: every day this week, I'll be posting ten holiday gift ideas - fifty total by Friday. This year, I aimed to feature items from small businesses (Etsy and otherwise), or my favorite local  shops here in NYC. Other items are things I own and love.

Day 3: Foxes, Feathers, Beauty Every Day.

-Sailing Ship Kite, $40. As magical for adults as it is for children. Made in New York City.

-Hand-stitched baseball, $39. I once asked during a high school baseball game whether there were two balls in play - which pretty much says it all about my knowledge of sports, both then and now. Still, I think these baseballs, handcrafted and stitched in waxed linen, are gorgeous.

-Cat paper doll, $8. This cat is tiny and adorable and ballet-slipper pink - and he couldn't care less about any of it.

-Antique astrology chart, $65. For astrology addicts and stargazers, a map of the sky that dates back to 1873. 

-The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4, $17.96. Anais Nin has felt like a spiritual guide to me this past year. I have this line taped to my wall.

-Della MacBook case, $38. Handmade in Ghana, using local, sustainable, vegan materials. (Della is an amazing company that offers education and skills training to its employees in West Africa. Read more, here.)

-Feather tattoo, $5 for 2. To encourage free spirits.

-Honey Maple Cream, $13. Made in Pennsylvania using fresh milk, butter, maple syrup, and vanilla. Indie food website Mouth suggests pairing it with almond butter for what sounds like the most astoundingly delicious sandwich of all time.

-Anthony Burrill print, $75. For your bedroom wall, because what better words could there be to wake up to?

-Woodland socks, $38.63. To ensure warm toes when doing this.

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More tomorrow! For Monday's and Tuesday's guides (and other gift ideas from my archives), click here.

Holiday Gift Ideas 2: Smiles, Sage, First Powered Flight.

Tis the season: every day this week, I'll be posting ten holiday gift ideas - fifty total by Friday. This year, I aimed to feature items from small businesses (Etsy and otherwise), or my favorite local  shops here in NYC. Other items are things I own and love.

Day 2: Smiles, Sage, First Powered Flight.

-Asymmetrical Beaded Plant Hanger, $50. Made with hemp and vintage polymer beads. I'd like to hang one off the canopy of my bed.

-Stitch-a-Smile Set, $8. A token of good cheer, for the new year and beyond.

-Big Sur Cabin Spray, $65. Because I'm often nostalgic for California, and because I can't resist this description of its scent: driving down the coastal highway along 500-foot ocean cliffs and through misty Redwoods, the smell of wild sage and sea mist in the air.

-Vintage poetry book, $17. A collection of Mikhail Lermontov's poetry (in Russian), printed in the 60s. I have to confess, I'm not familiar with the poet or his work, but I love the ruby-red cover and its mysterious words.

-Mexican fabric, one yard, $9.50. I've spent more time than I'd care to admit perusing this Etsy shop's wares, gaping at the colors.

-Guillow's 1903 Wright Flyer model kit, $32.01. Build a laser-cut model of the 1903 Wright Flyer, become inspired, create a world.

-2014 Eat Local Calendar, $30. Celebrate seasonal produce with kaleidoscopic odes to nature's bounty. Illustrated by Oakland artist - and my new friend - Maria Schoettler. 

-Gold julep strainer, $30. In frosty December, a reminder of summer.

-Mighty Asterisk, $18.95. Apparently this wooden treasure is a puzzle, and a very difficult one at that. Try your hand, or just admire its charm.

-Washi bandages, $6.50. The prettiest Band-Aids in all the land.

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More tomorrow! For yesterday's guide (featuring mermaids, Champagne chalk, and a starlit mug), click here. 

Holiday Gift Ideas 1: Bobcats, Mermaids, Tiny Mountains.

Tis the season: every day this week, I'll be posting ten holiday gift ideas - fifty total by Friday. This year, I aimed to feature items from small businesses (Etsy and otherwise), or my favorite local  shops here in NYC. Other items are things I own and love.

Day 1: Bobcats, Mermaids, Tiny Mountains.

-Bobcat and Other Stories, $14.95. One of the best books I read this year - and one of the strangest.

-Mermaid Sea Salt Spray, $22. My friend Megan and I love this rose-scented sea salt hair spray. We douse ourselves in it in hopes of becoming mermaids - it hasn't happened yet, but we'll keep trying.

-Three Stars Champagne Chalk, $11. This chalk is made by a German company over a century old using natural chalk deposits from Champagne, France.

-Tiny Snow-Capped Mountains and Sky Earrings Set, $55. Two moons, a cloud, and three snowy peaks, made to order. 

-Ceramic Incense Yurt, $62. This four-by-four-inch yurt is made in New York; its cousins the beehive and the teepee are pretty sweet, too.

-Mast Brothers Chocolate Chips, $19. The Mast Brothers chocolate factory is in my neighborhood. Sometimes I visit on my way to the train, just to take a deep breath in. 

-Red Jumping Leopard Dreamcatcher, $85. I love everything about this.

-Vintage movie camera, $42. It no longer works, but it'd be beautiful on a bookshelf.

-Starlight mug, $24. Handmade by Marina Temkin, brushed in blue, speckled in stars.

-Fingers Crossed lino print, $26.95. An image full of hope, from one of my Etsy favorites, Kaye Blegvad.

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More to come tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! With many of our friends out of the city, Megan and I had what we called a Tiny-giving, with a little roast chicken, the tiniest blue potatoes you've ever seen, and a cranberry sauce we made from scratch. It was cozy and quiet and the second Friendsgiving in a row that felt - despite its hodgepodge nature - pretty close to perfect. How was yours?

Shoes & Socks.

A big yes to these printed cotton lace-ups by Melbourne's Emily Green (the red ones especially, with lemon-colored laces and blue spots on just one side),

and to my pal Megan's Instagrams of her mis-matched socks - and of Mo, her cat, interfering.

In the spirit of mis-matchedness, three more (non-sartorial) links, just because:
-This is what a porcupine sounds like.
-Literary city guides.
-For Wall Street Journal subscribers, I'm quoted in this article about New Yorkers who take extracurricular classes (cheese-making! sake-tasting! pirouetting and plie-ing!) in their spare time.

Have a happy Thursday!

Becoming.

Below, wise words for the weekend, from Kurt Vonnegut to a group of NYC high school students who'd written to ask if he'd visit their school. (Ms. Lockwood, in case you're wondering, is their teacher.) Vonnegut very graciously declined, offering this sweet suggestion instead:

Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK? Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow. God bless you all! 

Beautiful. Thank you to the excellent Letters of Note for sharing. Photo credit unknown - please share if you can! Any plans for the weekend ahead? I'm heading to New Hampshire with a dozen others to celebrate a friend's birthday on a farm. Can't wait!

Finest Friends.

Timothy Leo Taranto's illustrations of writers' favorite animals are charming on their own. Paired with quotes, they're even better - Gerard de Nerval's lauds lobsters for their knowledge of the sea; Hemingway praises the emotional candor of cats. See more at The Paris Review.

Illustrations by Timothy Leo Taranto. 

(See also: animals as hats, marmot madness, Writers and Kitties.)

Tweets, Tunes, Telegrams.

Distractions before the weekend: famous photographs reimagined using Play-Doh,

tweets turned into telegrams,

and the ever-crushworthy HAIM, covering Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough." Love this. (Photo by Bella Lieberberg.)

And three more, just for kicks:
-Culinary curiosities: turmeric tea, and a frozen Kit-Kat cake inspired by Roald Dahl, who consumed the candy daily. (According to Paper and Salt: "He would save their silver wrappers, adding them to a giant foil ball on his desk, where visitors to the Dahl house can still see it today.")
-Speaking of beauty products, this is one of my favorites.
-"What I Won't Tell You About My Ballet Dancing Son."

See you Monday! (Oh, and New Yorkers, come check out Photoville this weekend - it's a pop-up photo exhibition set up inside repurposed freight containers in Brooklyn Bridge Park. You'll love it, I promise.)

Thoreau Throw.

New from Colorado-based quilting company Comma Workshop, whose work aims to preserve the "time-honored traditions of quilting and storytelling": a series of literary quilt collections, each featuring the celebrated words of a different author. The first in the series? This quilt, stitched with the chapter "Solitude" from Thoreau's Walden. "Imagine," writes founder Kerry Larkin, "being nestled in a sea of beautiful words as you sleep..."

Kerry has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of this quilt, and there are only three days left to back the project - show your support and offer a donation, here. Good luck, Kerry!

Fiction & Fromage.

For literature lovers and dairy devotees (and who among us isn't at least one of the two?), an article that pairs various types of cheese with literary equals. There's Tom Robbins's "raunchy" yet "unmistakably delicious" taleggio, and Virginia Woolf's Bayley Hazen Blue ("it's a mix of narratives - the Mrs. Dalloway of cheeses, if you will"). 

For Amelia Gray, there's a sheep's milk concoction studded with flowers and herbs; for Joyce Carol Oates, there's Humbolt Fog. Says author and cheese enthusiast Freddie Moore, "In the gourmet cheese canon, it's like the inevitable English class discussion of 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.'" Wow.

Read more at The Airship, here. Found via The Paris Review.