=Books recently read=

The Remains of the Day. Mr. Stevens, as he's almost exclusively known throughout this novel, is an English butler of the old school, when butlering wasn't just a profession, but an art and a calling and butlers devoted themselves fully to a house and a master. Mr. Stevens devoted himself to Darlington House and to Lord Darlington, a man who had some unfortunately misguided old world notions, or so it seems in retrospect, about fair play vis-a-vis the harsh punishment meted out to Germany after World War I. His judgement proved even worst when it came to dealing with Hitler just before the start of World War II. Anyway, those days are long over, Darlington is dead, and the house has passed into the hands of a nouveau riche American businessman. Mr. Stevens, himself now advanced in years, is taking a motoring vacation and reflecting on his long career, which, he hopes, stands up to the fine example of butlership exhibited by his father before him. As it happens, being the devoted servant he is, Mr. Stevens has a practical goal in mind for his journey. A meeting with a woman who some twenty years earlier was the head housekeeper at Darlington House. She and Mr. Stevens had locked horns on a number of occasions in ways that make it clear the issues weren't strictly professional. She eventually left to get married but that marriage is now apparently kaput and Mr. Stevens has arranged an interview at which he plans to offer the former Miss Kenton her old job back. As he gets closer and closer to his destination, Mr. Stevens replays events in his memory and realizes, or rather, he stops denying to himself how much he's always felt for Miss K—and how much Miss K seemingly felt for him. Eventually the two come face to face. Whether they reunite or not isn't quite the point of "The Remains of the Day" but rather that the regrets we have over how we lived our lives, the mistakes we made, the chances we didn't take aren't worth ruining what still remains of the light, however brief, even if it's only a sliver on the horizon before the final inevitable unending darkness descends. 

The Paper Garden. Poet Molly Peacock has written what is ostensibly a biography of Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700-1788) but this book is also several other things as well, including an examination of the process and importance of creativity and craft as an enhancement of life, a work of history with an emphasis on the role of women in the 18th century, and, finally, personal anecdote, as Peacock links her 21st century life as an artist with that of her subject. Delany is credited as being the woman who "discovered" collage when she accidentally observed a fallen geranium petal lying beside some red paper and was struck with the inspiration to replicate the real flower with bits of colored papers. She was 72 at the time, deep in grief after the death of her much-loved second husband, and her discovery brought her back to life. Over the next dozen years or so, Delany made 985 of these incredibly beautiful and scientifically accurate floral mosaics, becoming a celebrated personage among painters, botanists, writers, aristocrats, and even a king and a queen (George III and Charlotte). 

Peacock traces the arc of Delany's long life to show how making stuff engages us with the world around us and how craft can keep us going through tough times, even open us up to an experience of existence deeper, richer, and more illuminating than what we had—and lost—before. By working creatively, Peacock asserts, whatever our medium or discipline, we can literally transform our lives through art, giving them form, meaning and beauty, no less than we transform the materials with which we work to make poems and paintings, needlepoint and sculptures, gardens both real and replicated in paper. In this sense, life and art are not only interchangeable, but the same thing. As a poet, Peacock writes not just informationally about her subject, but inspirationally, with passion and authority. If you weren't already so inclined, she makes you want to pick up a pencil or a sewing needle, a garden shears or a scissors and set out right now to make something.