Bedside table books

Every so often I just have to de-clutter the piles of books by my bed … usually, as was the case today, because its gown so high that I can no longer see the time on the radio!

Sorting through the pile on my ‘English’ bedside table (yes, there’s another, similar pile by my French bed) I realised that for a while, sometimes a long while, I have collection of readings that are important but frequently neglected. They are often just picked up for my ‘before sleep’ reading, usually  when I have finished a very good book and can’t quite bear to choose another novel … somehow I need some respite, a break, a settling time before the next long haul book.

Its then I turn to the type of book I sorted through just now –May Sarton’s Sarton Selected, Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poetry, Writing Your Self by Killick and Schneider, and an anthology of poems In Gilded Frame that has 3 of my poems and lots more art inspired poetry. In a few months that list will look similar but different, the same but with other titles.

Also in today’s pile is Ann Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek –its been there a while because its not an easy read but its a great read in small doses, not the least because it reminds me to get outside, to walk, to pay attention to what is along the small pathways around and about.

Two reasons then, at least, for that eclectic bedside table book pile – and there are undoubtedly more.

I’m looking forward to very soon seeing what I left by my French bed at the end of the summer and renewing my acquaintance with more books to dip into slowly, regularly and probably slightly incompletely!