The Commonplace Book

'Book by Book'

“'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.” 
 - Ralph Waldo Emerson



There is a fascination, interest, perhaps passion in which I indulge my eclectic interests. The commonplace book seems to suit my peripatetic mind.  It is a writer's personal collection of quotations, observations, and topic ideas. Called florilegia ("flowers of reading") in the Middle Ages, commonplace books were especially popular during the Renaissance and into the 18th century. For some writers, blogs serve as contemporary versions of commonplace books. The classic is Auden's A Certain World, but I was lured into exploring this genre by Michael Dirda's own contribution, Book By Book. It is a book-lover's delight and has led me down many trails that I will share another time. 

While Dirda recommends Auden, of course and Cyril Connolly's An Unquiet Grave; I have taken up the challenge of one of my favorite authors, D. J. Enright. So it is with delight that I am exploring, slowly savoring, his own " kind of a commonplace book", Interplay. It is here that I will be able to meditate on the pleasures of reading, mulling both thoughts and words - perhaps cogitating some new ones of my own.


Book by Book by Michael Dirda.  Henry Holt & Company, 2006.
Interplay: A Kind of Commonplace Book by D. J. Enright. OxfordUniversity Press, 1995.

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash