[Bb]

One of the areas in which my life feels extremely rich is that of ooks. Sorry that did not come out right. The b key on my keyboard stopped working last night. Pressing ctrl+v each time a b is needed does not yet come automatically. I could not figure out why Facebook kept rejecting my log-in attempts. Had my account been hacked? It took me two password resets to figure out what the problem was; my password had a B in it. So now when I write I have to locate and copy a lower-case and upper case b and keep them close to the text I am writing. Good thing that the password for the PC does not contain a b or I would never have gotten in.

Back to ooks again and feeling rich. I am no good with money. My failures are too consistent and too spectacular to be chance. I will blog about that some time. I am not too good with people much of the time. In the area of books, however, I am rich beyond rich. Books like me. They flock to me like sparrows to a birdfeeder. I don’t even have to put bread crumbs out anymore – the ones already here attract new ones all the time. I am wading in unread books to my knees like some Uncle Scrooge. Each time another little sparrow comes flying I feel lucky to be me.

I am supposed to be reading Wilkinson’s “Symbol and magic in Egyptian Art” right now. I will be going to London soon and was planning to go and look at some of the Egyptian artifacts at the British Museum or the Petrie Museum. The book has been next to my bed with the bookmark stuck between pages 20 and 21 for a couple of weeks now. I can tell that it is offended. Wilkinson is not to blame. It must be the heat.

I find that reading several books at once often helps if I am stuck in one. The day before yesterday an article alerted me to the fact that Graham Greene has written three autobiographies. I love Graham Greene, I also love autobiographies (when I love the authors). I had no idea that Greene had written three. According to the online library catalogue one of titles was available (in entire Stockholm). I found another promising-looking book by Greene which I also reserved.

Library patrons are usually notified via e-mail a week after making the reservation that the book is ready to be picked up. Feeling a bit impatient I did not want to wait a week. Assuming that it would take the librarians at least a couple of days to do anything about my reservation, I walked over to the library after work to look for the books. This being Sweden, the few Greene books in English were in the storehouse. No one has probably checked them out since the 1960’s. I am being sarcastic but only because it hurts to have Graham Greene exiled to the storehouse.

It must have been over 100 degrees in the library. The librarians were less than friendly. Pointedly avoiding eye contact, one of them finally agreed to go and get my books. She was gone a long time. While I waited, my eyes were caught by a book on creative writing with a garish cover. I had just recently decided that I have read enough books on creative writing for the rest of my life; when I pick up a new one up it just says something I have already read. The cover of this one was so horrible I had to have a look. My curiosity was piqued, then peaked. Unlike all the other umpteen books on creative writing I have read this one ignores the writing part and focuses on the creativity of creative writing, as in storytelling. It downplays plot. Storytelling. The kind of storytelling we use whenever we tell each other something interestng. The book also contains an intelligent discussion of the definition of “story”, which is something I have been looking for.

If this sounds interesting, check out “Write right! Creative writing using storytelling techniques” by Kendall Haven and don’t let the coloring book cover throw you off. Me, I am headed towards my allotment garden with Kendall and Wilkinson and Greene in my bag.