blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

It is the first day of preschool. You walk into a classroom filled with unfamiliar faces, clinging to your mom’s hand before it’s time to say goodbye. You take your seat on the welcome rug, carefully patting down your “first-day of school” dress as you timidly scan the brightly colored toys and trinkets that line the shelves. It doesn’t look like a scary place, but it is very different from anything you’ve known. As you absorb the new world around you, the teacher pulls out a book. You recognize the cover as one you’ve read before, and as she begins to read you slip into the comfort of a familiar story.

“Good things take time” is an old adage that has been issued to almost everyone at one point or another in their lifetime. It flows from the mouths of professors as they warn their students not to wait until the night before to start their 15-page research paper, from coaches of disgruntled beginner athletes, and from parents attempting to convince their child to be more diligent in practicing their piano notes. With the boom of technology and the drive for convenience, it seems being patient grows more difficult with each passing day. Waiting for the Wi-Fi connection at a local coffee shop feels like eternity, and we suffer extreme indignation when the pizza delivery man takes more than 30 minutes to arrive. While the art of efficiency and the drive for productivity is not without its benefits in the world today, it is often best ignored by the creative mind. Good books—like many things in life—take time. In the case of Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, it took fourteen years.

“Let me feel how thy pulses beat.” ―Thomas Middleon, The Changeling

Entertainment is a word that can carry many different meanings. Before the days of Hollywood movies, Broadway musicals, and Netflix accounts, the world was enamored with the stage. Theatres in 16th century England brought tragedy, comedy, and romance to life—cultivated in the minds of brilliant writers, and brought into fruition by passionate actors.

Before sitting down to write this article, I tried to imagine a world without poets. I envisioned Romeo explaining his love to Juliet with a pie chart, and Maya Angelou’s gaze passing over a caged songbird with resigned indifference. Indeed, a world without poets would be a world painfully absent of artists who are fully awake to the human experience, allowing raw emotion to course through their veins and manifest itself through the ink of their pen. To honor their literary contributions on World Poetry Day, here are ten poets you should read.

 As a college student, I have once again found myself reacting to illustrations with the same partiality that I had as a child. In addition to cultivating strong academic habits and earning a degree, being at a University has challenged me in the lost art of doodling. Three-dimensional flowers curl their way around my history lecture notes, thriving on the lightly-shaded raindrops that pour down from the upper right hand corner of my loose–leaf paper. My work is mediocre at best, but it brings an element of zest to the notes that cling to the page in flat obedience.

If an unprofessional flower sketch can bring beauty to a History notebook, imagine the power of intricate illustrations tucked into well-written books: lifelike depictions of heroes and villains dancing across the pages of stories written throughout history, where words and pictures come together to create a different world in which readers can dwell for hours on end. One such uniquely talented illustrator is Howard Pyle.

Free of heavy snow and sharp winter winds, Haiti is a tropical nation that rests in the Caribbean Sea. Despite it’s picturesque location, life in Haiti in the 1900s was far from a vacation for its inhabitants. Political unrest, poverty, and loss were ever-present themes of daily life, laying a heavy burden on families across the country. Despite the harsh oppressions that taint Haiti’s past, the voice of one woman emerges through the despair and weaves poetry out of a broken history.

“Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.” – William Morris

In the late 1700s, the industrial revolution took root and quickly propelled society toward a future of consumerism and commoditization. Although this period in history brought about many positive changes in the lives of working class citizens, the era was not without its shortcomings. Beauty was exchanged for practicality, time was equated to money, and the jobs that once needed the skill of human hands could be replicated by machinery. One example of modernization was the printing industry. Books were being produced more mechanically than ever before, which left the pages filled with words but void of soul. A man named William Morris recognized the loss of an art in modern society, and aimed to counter it.

In the Jewish faith tradition, Hanukkah is a beautiful remembrance of the miraculous supply of oil for the rededication of the Jewish Temple, and a victory over the Seleucid Empire. For eight days and nights, the Jewish people celebrate and reflect together with gifts, prayer, and the lighting of the menorah. In Hebrew, the word “Hanukkah” means “dedication.” Through the reflections and perspectives of Jewish authors and characters, we have the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what it truly means to be dedicated to one’s faith. Here are a few literary works that embody the spirit of Hanukkah.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and the illustrations in children’s books are no exception. While the author weaves enchanting tales that ignite our curiosity, the illustrator brings the story to life. Here are ten classic children's illustrators who have made their mark on literary history.

Letters become words, words become sentences, and sentences come together to fill the chapters of literature all over the world. While some passages run through our minds for only a moment before we turn the page, others have the power to stay with us for a lifetime. As an avid reader, I have found that beautiful sentences are beautiful not only because they are poetic, but also because they express a truth we crave to understand. Whether you are reading in a quiet house, on a crowded bus, or sitting on a park bench on a warm summer’s day, beautiful sentences give us the language to share our most powerful human experiences and the knowledge that we are never alone. In one humble reader’s opinion, here are ten of the most beautiful passages in literature.