Recommended Reading / 18.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

This week: a post from Winesburg, Ohio, a blog I came across a few weeks ago, the archives of which I devoured in nearly one sitting.  In this entry, dated December 7, writer Cassie Marketos (who also happens to be a former college classmate), tries to recount the books she's read over the course of many travels. There's Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall, whose pages fell out all over the beach in Eastern Thailand; Donna Tartt's The Secret History, finished on the prow of a boat; a paperback with a title she can't remember, that she traded for a sandwich in Spain.

I love this because Cassie's words are beautiful (and so are her images), but I also love it just for the idea. In winter, when the cold keeps me confined to a seven-block radius — and non-work-related reading is often limited to what I can manage in the ten minutes before sleep —  it makes me want to read more, travel more, trade more, move more. See for yourself, here.  (And, please, if you have any book recommendations of your own to share, do!)

Three more, just because:
-The best hugs on film.
-A table with deer's legs (and a bench inspired by a pretzel).
-Interesting: "The unique trait of Sapiens is our ability to create and believe fiction. All other animals use their communication system to describe reality. We use our communication system to create new realities. Of course not all fictions are shared by all humans, but at least one has become universal in our world, and this is money. Dollar bills have absolutely no value except in our collective imagination, but everybody believes in the dollar bill."

More recommended reading, here. Stay safe and warm in the storm tonight, fellow East Coasters.