The Bookshop Strikes Back

This is the title of a little book by the lovely American writer, Ann Patchett.  It tells the heartening story of how she and a few friends decided to open up their own bookshop in Nashville after their two small local bookshops were forced to close.

 

Her booklet describes the often daunting steps they had to take towards the achievement of their aim.  As she says in her final words: 

 

“If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore.  If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read the book. This is how we change the world:  we grab hold of it.  We change ourselves.”

 

I found this booklet in my local Daunts bookshop, just after blogging about The Power of just doing Stuff by Rob Hopkins (see my blog of 7 July).  I suggested to them that they should put the two books together in a prominent position in their shop, as Daunts, too, is one of the few independent bookshops in London.

 

So for any book-lovers out there, I suggest you grab her little book, which is published by Bloomsbury and costs a mere £1.99, the cost of a cup of coffee, and far more nourishing to the soul!

 

 

Andy Murray - Water!

What a Wimbledon final!  Quite apart from the tension and the high levels of tennis from both players, it was good for me to see the Water element so triumphantly in action.

This is what Andy Murray said about his own achievement:

“I don’t expect to ever have a harder game.  The points were unbelievably hard but it was something I wasn’t going to let go.  This is what I have been working for all these years and once I felt I had it in my grasp I wasn’t going to let it go.”

Such very Water words!

And you can have no better example of a groaning Water voice than Murray’s.

I think Novak Djokovic is Fire.  He is even able to smile quietly if things aren't going right. So whereas Fire has quenched Water several times before, in the end Water managed this time to extinguish Fire. 

There are still those two other great tennis players out there ready to engage in the battle of the tennis courts:  Rafa Nadal, Wood, and Roger Federer, Water, like Murray.  And of course Ivan Lendl is pure Metal - detached, still, judging things from a distance.

As you can see, I like to pretend to myself that I am developing my diagnostic skills as I indulge in my love of watching sport! 

The Power of Just Doing Stuff

I have just read this lovely illuminating and inspiring little book by Rob Hopkins The Power of Just Doing Stuff – How local action can change the world, and recommend it for anybody at all interested in developments which help people in their own communities.  Read it and be heartened that there are good things happening on a small but significant scale all round the world.

You can order it from the Guardian bookshop at the reduced price of £6.74 instead of £8.99 www.guardianbookshop.co.uk, or support your local bookshop and order it there, and in so doing do your little bit to help your local community.