iBuy and then iThink

one should not covet a book by its cover, but one does.
i am such a sucker for catchy design and colour.

the Hachette editions of Alexander Mc.call Smith's Mma. Ramotswe books have such excellent woodcut-style cover art by Hannah Firmin, that i cannot help going into a trance imagining them on my bookshelf and wake up to find that i have bought them.
not that i'm complaining.

the gentle rhythm of the narrative and the contemplative pace of the stories bring to mind vacations spent lying stomach-down, reading and eating, to the accompaniment of the rain pattering down outside. Dusty Botswana of the sleepy, sweet-smelling cattle is a far cry from the robust lushness of my Malabar Coast, but the abundance of good food - the produce fresh from the garden - the chickens picking away in yards, the possibility of pausing whatever one is doing to just 'sit and talk'...all of that is the same.

  

 




sadly, leisure is such a lost art nowadays.
noone seems to know what to do without a computer or a cell-phone or a television to amuse oneself. why are all the realms that one could cross, in the snugness of one's thoughts so out of bounds for so many now?

i had once asked my students to think of a few things they could do to amuse themselves on a dark rainy evening, with the electricity cut off. they just could not! except for scaring people in the dark, and for telling scary stories to each other by torchlight, that is.

i wonder if we have taken away something vital from our children. the connection to the soil they stand upon, and that which has made all of us.