Roberta goes to the library to pick up a few items and, finding herself surrounded by riches (in several formats), avails herself of them liberally, then runs out of steam…

November 18, 2012 at 7:18 pm (Anglophilia, architecture, books, Library, Local interest (Baltimore-Washington), Music, Photography, Spiritual)

One sunny Saturday morning, Roberta decided to visit the library. Her intent was to pick up two books she had reserved,  perhaps one or two additional mysteries, and a volume on art history.

 

 

Miller is Roberta’s local branch, a repository of more fabulous stuff than you can shake a stick at. (Please pardon the recourse to clichés – one is not up to much else, at present!) Roberta headed straight upstairs, where the new books for adults awaited her. I mean, why pass up a chance for some serendipity thereabouts? And lo: serendipity there was – in spades (those pesky clichés again). Her resistance held firm on the fiction side but broke down around the corner in nonfiction. Why here was Every Good Endeavor, a new work by Dr. Timothy Keller, Senior Pastor at New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, whose wisdom, compassion, and eloquence had so impressed her in The Reason for God.    

Okay – I am now officially switching to the first person. Writing about yourself in the third person is just too weird! (Who is that woman, anyway?)

I am also currently reading The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.    For 21 years, Rabbi Sacks has been Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. In this book, he attempts to reconcile the claims of faith and science; indeed, he believes that the perception of a schism between the two is erroneous in the first place. Rabbi Sacks writes with wit and elegance. Me, I am happy to receive good counsel from wise men and women, whatever their affiliation!

Moving from the 200s (religion and spirituality) to the 500s (science), I found several items of interest. In recent years, we’ve seen a number of writers who are able to explain exciting new developments in physics and astronomy in ways that are accessible to what one might term the lay reader. For example:

   

 

 

Here I must confess to a tendency to take such books home with the best intentions, only to return them to the library unread. I did, however, finish – and greatly enjoy – those last two titles. (Before the Fallout is as much a history book as a science book and made for really riveting reading. Preston begins by describing what happened to one woman when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  I reads Before the Fallout when it came out in 2005 and that scene has remained vivid in mind, in Preston’s measured retelling, a true horror story. “Silver treasure” indeed….) Mirror Earth currently resides on my night table – or one of my several night tables. Wish me luck.

I was just thinking that I’d better tear myself away from the new books when my eye lighted upon this: 

It’s the kind of book I love: you can just dip into it from time to time and get your fill of wonder. Isabel Kuhl begins her survey with the great pyramids of Egypt – that chapter is subtitled “The First Houses Built for Eternity” –  and ends with some spectacular structures by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Liebeskind, and others:

The Great Pyramids of Giza  2560-2540 BC

Daniel Liebeskind: Jewish Museum of Berlin, exterior 1989-1998

Frank Gehry: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain  1997

Zaha Hadid: Bridge Pavilion Zaragoza, Spain 2008

And in between these two astonishing extremes of time and place, one jaw dropper after another:

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 360 AD

Durham Cathedral, Durham, England 1093-1133

Cathedral of Laon, Picardy, France 1160-1230

Ceiling fresco of the Church of Sant’Ignazio, Rome 1650

Church of Sant’Ignazio, Apse

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome 432-440?

Chateau de Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France 1519-1547

[Click here for panoramic views of Chambord.]

Zwinger Palace, Dresden Germany 11697-1716

Chrysler Building, New York City 1928-1930

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1971-1977

Burj Khalifa Dubai 2010

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Whew! I’m just about done in. And I so wanted to explain about the mysteries and the DVD’s – almost exclusively British mysteries….Ah well, it will have to wait. But I do want to mention a CD that I picked up:  This was true serendipity, aided by prominent placement on a display of audiovisual materials on Miller’s richly endowed first floor.

Among the musical selection on this disc is one I especially love, Handel’s coronation anthem “Zadok the Priest.”  I plugged the title into the YouTube search box and got some marvelous results. Here are two of my favorites.

First, the 2004 wedding of Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik and Mary Elizabeth Donaldson of Australia (by way of Scotland, as can be seen by her father’s attire);

I was thrilled by this one. It’s an Anglophile’s dream – this Anglophile’s, at any rate:

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I owe a debt of gratitude to the good people of the Miller Branch, a place that, in my retirement years, has become a home away from home!