These stacks of books should tell you a little something about me and what I like to read. Topics: artists, writers, architects, directors, and the world wars. Location: mostly abroad...Paris, Barcelona, France, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland with a little New York thrown in. When: usually in the early to mid 1900's. Sometimes these books carry me to others. (I ordered a book by Djuna Barnes recently.) Sometimes these books touch me deeply. I hold them, hug them, touch them and feel sad; sad for a way of life that appears to be on the way out.
The Matisse: Father and Son hit me hardest that way. It is the favorite of all that I've read recently and you see here. Although it is a biography of Pierre Matisse, art dealer extraordinaire, and the son of the artist Henri Matisse; much of the basis for the book includes letters written between father and son, and letters written between Pierre and other artists he represented in New York. Through handwritten letters, traveling between Europe and New York, sometimes during war, frequently taking up to a month in transit; you get a rich, feeling, detailed sense of these people, their relationships and the world at the time. When I hold most books, I hold magical living, breathing, people, places and times that rest in my heart and soul. The Matisse book is such a book. But...What about paper? What about writing? What about books? What about mail? What about stamps? I constructively mourn their demise.