The Nature of Reading and Rainbows

 Happy Hues Necklace

Cheerful Charm Necklace

Top: Macy's

Skirt: Vanilla Star, Macy's

Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney

Bag:  Uniquely Different, Etsy

Belt: Candie's, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Michaels

Barrette: The Tote Trove

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't sure what to post about yet.  Then I checked my emails and saw that there was a new post from Samantha at The Big Hair Diaries.  It was about nature and, as always, fun and insightful.  So much so that it inspired me to go with the nature theme I'd been kicking around.  Which kind of involves a book that's sort of about nature too.

A few weeks ago, I read a novel by a new (to me) author, Jenny Colgan, called The Bookshop on the Corner.  If I haven't said so already, one of my favorite things ever is curling up with a good book -- or even a not-so-good book. Truth be told, I read lots of so-so books that I never blog about. But that's okay. Because I don't read to learn something earth-shattering, or even to be amused or moved. If the book is that special, then it's a bonus. I read because I need to. It's my way of unplugging from and connecting to the world.  And that's something I can get from even the most mundane plots and basic bitch characters.

Anyway, The Bookshop on the Corner is about a librarian named Nina who lives in Birmingham, (England, not Alabama) and is on the verge of losing her job.  She's amazing at what she does -- she always knows just which book to recommend to each person, and she has so many books in her apartment that they're threatening to break through the ceiling -- but the thing is, people don't need libraries anymore.  At least not city people.  So, she stumbles through an interview for a media specialist position even though she has no idea what that is and predictably loses out to a slicker candidate.  Then her roommate, who's had enough of Nina's literary hoarding, kicks her out.  So Nina digs deep and asks herself what she wants to do with her life.

And the answer is . . . run a bookshop.  When she sees an ad for an old van for sale in Scotland, she thinks, why not a mobile bookshop?  She goes up there.  It's scary.  The challenge of doing something new, that is, not the place.  The place is bucolic and calming.  And in many ways, the situation is serendipitous.  The locals, who are farmers with little in the way of stores and entertainment, are eager to have Nina, and she needs a place to live.  One life-defining van accident later (you didn't see that coming, did you?), Nina is comfortably installed in a surprisingly sumptuous guest house apartment, driving her newly christened The Little Shop of Happy Ever After to swap meets and craft fairs to the delight of everyone she encounters.  Sure, there a few bad apples, but for the most part, her customers are nice, and Nina wants to get to know them.  As a result, she soon becomes enmeshed in the town and its dramas, transforming her from a mousy spectator into a, if not mouthy, then self-assured star.  Scotland's peaceful, green countryside (not to mention its farm fresh bacon and eggs) is the antidote to Birmingham's harsh hustle and bustle, and being surrounded by nature invigorates Nina in way that the concrete jungle never could.  She looks up at the sky and wonders how she could ever have lived in a city or limited her dreams to its claustrophobic skyscrapers.

In the end, it is this cleansing power of nature, as well as the love of a gruff-but-kind dude (did I mention that there's a dude?) that leads Nina to -- spoiler alert -- just what she's looking for.  Which is, of course, lovely.  That said, I was struck by Colgan's reflective summation:               

"She had started with a van.  But somehow it had opened her up to so much more.  And now she wanted that real life that she felt she had been missing out on, that she felt other people got a shot at while she sat quietly in a corner being nice." (295)

  

The Bookshop on the Corner is a good story.  Simple and sweet and afghany.  Overall, I enjoyed it because it's about country life, new beginnings, and, most importantly, people who love books.  I look forward to checking out the rest of Colgan's canon.           

Like Nina (and Samantha), I believe that nature has an other-worldly and energizing-yet-soothing effect, encouraging us to open our minds.  Which is why I like to preserve it in pictures.  Here's one I took last fall of the Atlantic City skyline from Brigantine:  

And here's one of a dew-spangled spider web on my own front lawn just last week:

I don't have a picture of a rainbow.  But "rainbow" was a good way to round out the "r" in "reading" in this post title -- and to give a shout-out to LeVar Burton.

Also, I made these rainbow-y necklaces.