Angels and Rilke

Well, I hope all of you had a lovely Thanksgiving! I drove a carriage all night, but actually had a great time! So, I have a book called A Book of Angels by Sophie Burnham which had accidentally been put in the wrong section. As I was returning it to its home-away-from-home, I started flipping through it. My mom had a thing for angels some time ago, but other than knowing that, as a kid, I was followed around by my Guardian Angel, I have not giving much thought to angels in my adulthood. Lo and behold, this book is really cool! It deals with death, ghosts, all kinds of interesting things. Will I be sitting up here all day, reading, instead of working? Maybe. Just maybe. I can't say for sure.I am enjoying this book and although it is for sale for a mere three dollars ($3), give me a little time with it before you all come in to snatch it off my shelves! Of course, the book starts off with a poem by Ranier Marie Rilke, who is, to me, the very definition of what a poet is!

But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?
-Ranier Marie Rilke
Duino Elegies, 2

Friday, November 28, 2008- 10% off everything in the store!!

Oh yeah, you read right. The English Major will have a

"Black Friday" Sale
of 10% off Everything In The Store!!!!
Come check it out!

Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.
- George Bernard Shaw

Random Samplings from Random Books

"...and little Dagonet mincing with his feet:
"Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck
In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch
Of music, since I care not for thy pearls.
Swine? I have wallow'd, I have wash'd- the world
In flesh and shadow- I have had my day.
The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind
Hath foul'd me- and I wallow'd, then I wash'd-
I have my day and my philosophies-
And thank the Lord I am King Arthurs's fool.
Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese
Troop's round a Paynim harper once, who thrumm'd
On such a wire as musically as thou
Some such fine song- but never a king's fool."
Alfred Lord Tennyson
from Idylls of the King, p. 214
$2

"...Yet mountains and lakes as playgrounds are not enough, no matter how well supervised. A Lake District National Park can be no mere conservation area, still less any kind of static or even working museum. Not all the cash flowing in from the tourists, not the standards so well maintained by The National Trust, which owns key parts of the park, can amount to much if a genuine organic life doesn't pulse in beneath the well-cared-for skin. The region, as far as I could tell, seemed to be surviving. Alive, if precariously. Which of us can say more?"
Norman Shrapnel
Nature's Wonderlands- National Parks of the World
$12



"English majors in college show up in my writing workshops years later, after trying a career in another field, because a dream was born in them back in school when they read Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and Virginia Wolf, and they can't get it out of their heads. So after a few years as computer programmers, they see it doesn't give them that kind of hard rain in the afternoon outside the window. They know there is something else and that it's in their own brain. I honor English majors. It's a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It's good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That's the best kind of love."
Natalie Goldberg
Wild Mind - Living the Writer's Life, p. 140

No Room

Well, I turn 29 again tomorrow. It is an amazing thing when the exact same birthday keeps coming, year after year ( after year, after year, etc.) It is freezing cold these days, I am reading about forty different books and have some bad news. Due to a total lack of space, I cannot take in books for trade anymore. I want people to know that this was not a marketing ploy, to suspend trade over Christmas, it was more like a rookie, first-time business owner mistake. I simply don't have any more room and am working on solving that problem. As for now, I am selling only. On the smallest scale, of course, I can trade - say, a couple of books (two, maybe three. Or four). Hope to see ya'll in the store soon!

Analogies (from Leaves of Gold, edited by Clyde Francis Little):

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.
-Charron


Genius is the gold in the mine; talent is the miner who works to bring it out.
Lady Blessington

Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement.
-Goldsmith

There is no negativity in the present moment.
-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Will the Ceiling Hold?

"The simpler one writes, the better it will be.
In trying to dress things up, one only distorts them."
-Saint Bernadette on her deathbed, April 1879


Busy, busy, busy. Lots going on. Over 300 books came in over the past ten days! Rainy, cold day- such a good day to read and listen to raindrops and think, eh? More Later!

History, Philosophy, New Age Thought and Practice

Descartes goes into a McDonald's for lunch. He tells the girl behind the counter that he wants a Big Mac. She asks,"Do you want fries with that?"
He replies,"I think not."
And disappears.

Hee Hee.

However, for the record, The English Major Bookstore has declared, as specialties, the following areas:

*History*

*Philosophy*

*New Age Thought and Practice*

I do have some exciting news! Firstly, yours truly is, or may be, in the new movie Soulmen, with Bernie Mac, which came out today. I was a hired extra who just happened to be on my horse and carriage, so, assuming I was not cut, I am the carriage driver in the movie!

Secondly, there is going to be a forthcoming book club and poetry groups created at the store. Things are still in the planning stages, but I would like to have a book club once a month as well as a poetry night/ poetry-writing group meeting each month. Anyone interested, feel free to get in touch with me at karmormem@live.com with suggestions or ideas.

Great Quote:

Read the best books first or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

-Henry David Thoreau

Hi Mike, Amy and Blank!

I'm So Excited - Who Is Going To Win?!??!

“If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget t
hat you were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams

"In the beginning of a change,
the patriot is a scarce and brave man,
hated and scorned.
When his cause succeeds however,
the timid join him,
for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-Mark Twain

Ahhh, Poets

I walked with poets in my youth,
Because the world they drew
Was beautiful and glorious
Beyond the world I knew.

The poets are my comrades still,
But dearer than in my youth,
For now I know that they alone
Picture the world of truth.
-William Roscoe Thayer


MISTAKES
There are six mistakes in life that many of us make, said a famous writer, and then he gave the following list:
*The delusion that individual advancement is made by crushing others down.
*The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
*Insisting that a thing is impossible because we ourselves cannot accomplish it.
*Refusing to set aside trivial preferences in order that important things may be accomplished.
*Neglecting development and refinement.
*The failure to establish the habit of saving money.

Sins of Society
Someone has said that the seven deadly sins of society are these:
*Policies without principles
*Wealth without work
*Pleasure without conscience
*Knowledge without character
*Commerce and industry without morality
*Science without humanity
*Worship without sacrifice
-An Observer

The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.
-Sheridan