Category: Something Wonderful

There are many ways a book can be inspirational. The other day, a friend and I briefly discussed A Jane Austen Education, in which the author writes about how reading Austen’s novels changed him as a person. That’s a wonderful thing, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. In this case, I mean something a little less practical and a little more magical.

My guess is that many of us who are serious readers have sometimes wanted to live inside a book. Certainly many a Harry Potter fan has wanted this; that’s why the Wizarding World of Harry Potter exists and why some colleges have quidditch teams. This desire to live inside a book is also why there are tons of literary cookbooks and online recipes, including The Little House Cookbook, The Unofficial Narnia Cookbook, and Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books.

Like many readers, I love food scenes in books. I think picture books are an often overlooked source of inspiration. How can anyone resist the supper Margaret makes in The Maggie B.?

“Margaret and James ate the beautiful sea stew and dunked their muffins in the broth, which tasted of all the good things that had cooked in it. For dessert they had the peaches with cinnamon and honey, and glasses of warm goat’s milk.”

And Bread and Jam for Frances is full of food inspiration. Albert and Frances’ lunches sound particularly delicious.

“I have a cream cheese-cucumber-and-tomato sandwich on rye bread,” said Albert. “And a pickle to go with it. And a hard-boiled egg and a little cardboard shaker of salt to go with that. And a thermos bottle of milk. And a bunch of grapes and a tangerine. And a cup custard and a spoon to eat it with.”

“I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup,” she said. “And a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread. I have celery, carrot sticks, and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery. And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries. And vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles and a spoon to eat it with.”

While I’ve made adjustments to their menus (I hate celery), I’ve allowed both of these meals to inspire my lunches.

But it’s not just food in books that can capture your imagination. When I was a child, I read and reread All-of-a-Kind Family, a story about five Jewish girls living in New York during the 1910s. While the food was enticing, there were many other things that I loved about the girls’ lives. One of my favorite chapters involved the sisters discovering wonderful books in their father’s junk shop. In another chapter, their mother made dusting an enviable chore by hiding buttons and the occasional penny. It’s hard to hide buttons from yourself before dusting (unless you’re very forgetful), but the ideas behind the stories — discovering treasures among used books, turning a chore into play — are easy enough to make a part of your life, if they aren’t already.

Ursula Nordstrom’s The Secret Language, a book which deserves far more young readers than it has, filled me with dreams of midnight feasts, hidden huts, and fun but impractical Halloween costumes when I was little. As an adult, I still appreciate the May basket the girls made — a tiny scene made of moss, flowers, a twig, and a mirror to make a pond. And if I knew a child at boarding school, I’d be tempted to imitate Victoria’s aunt and send a gift of tiny dolls a few weeks before Christmas break to help the time pass more quickly.

And then there are books that are just asking for a touch of magic. If Universal Studios can take visitors as close as they’ll ever get to Harry Potter’s world, then surely someone can do something similar for The Night Circus! Imagine a place filled with black and white tents, containing amazing acts and seemingly impossible things, like an ice garden. If nothing else, I’d love to attend (or attempt to create) a party based on Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre’s Midnight Dinners, with fabulous food, red and gold decor, and entertainment. The fact that I’m not much of a night person is a problem, but I’m sure I could stretch myself for such an occasion.

Nonfiction, too, can be inspirational. While Elizabeth Gilbert probably wanted me to pay more attention to her interior journey in Eat Pray Love, what I came away with was the desire to take a year to live in a few different places. Under the Tuscan Sun also sparks my desire to live abroad for a while, as well as make some of the food and visit some of the places in the book.

There are plenty of things in books we read that are unattainable. Perhaps they’re as impossible as Celia Bowen’s magical carousel. Perhaps they’re merely impractical, like taking a year off work to travel the world when money is tight. But if a book captures your imagination, ask yourself, “What about this can I bring into my life now? How can I make it a reality on some level?”

Perhaps you’ll be the person to create that Night Circus I want to visit.

You probably know T. H. White for his collection of Arthurian stories, The Once and Future King. His book Mistress Masham’s Repose is less well-known, but it’s worth your while. I think I’ve read it three or four times!

The book follows the well-worn literary trope of the mistreated orphan. Even though there are a ridiculous number of orphans in British literature, many of the books and book series that fall into that category are quite good: think Jane Eyre, the Harry Potter series, and A Little Princess. I would add this book to that list.

Our orphan is Maria, a child of a once wealthy and powerful family. She lives in the ruins of her ancestral estate with her governess, Miss Brown, whom White describes as “cruel in a complicated way.”

For instance, when Maria’s last uncle had been alive, he had sometimes remembered to send the child a box of chocolates for Christmas. Miss Brown’s arrangements for any such parcel had usually been fixed in stages. First, Maria had not been allowed to open it when it came, “in case it had germs.” It had been sent down to the kitchen to be baked. Then Maria had been sent for, to the Northwest Drawing Room, in which Miss Brown resided, and the ruined parcel had been placed before her to be undone. The next step had been to claim that Maria had dirty hands, untruly, and to send her back to the kitchen, a ten minutes’ walk, to wash them. When she had got back at last, agog with expectation, and the poor melted chocolates had been unstuck from the brown paper, Miss Brown used to condemn them as improperly packed and throw them into the nearest lake with her own fair fingers “for fear they would make the child sick.”

On a day when Miss Brown is indisposed, Maria, playing pirate, wades ashore on Mistress Masham’s Repose, an island on her estate. There she makes a discovery: the island is inhabited by Lilliputians who were abducted and brought to England. When they escaped their captors, they managed to hide on the island until Maria found them.

Maria and the Lilliputians develop a complicated relationship. She loves them, but she is immature and has trouble relating to them as equals. White masterfully writes about the humanity of the Lilliputians without getting preachy or talking down to his audience. He also includes a great deal of humor, so things never get too heavy. This is the kind of book you might be tempted to read all Saturday afternoon, instead of taking care of those weekend chores you planned to knock off your list.

I almost hesitate to confess this, but in the interest of being honest with my readers, I will: I have never read The Once and Future King. That’s not because I’m not interested. I like Arthurian stories, and I love White’s writing; I just haven’t gotten to it yet. So I cannot compare Mistress Masham’s Repose to the author’s more famous work. I can assure you that it’s an excellent book. If you have children, get a copy and read it to them. If not… don’t let that stop you from treating yourself!