{"id":14372,"date":"2016-03-06T07:12:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T12:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=14372"},"modified":"2016-03-06T10:45:43","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T15:45:43","slug":"the-book-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/the-book-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"The Book Shelf."},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, 6 March 2016, is Mother\u2019s Day in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Some weeks ago when I was in Massachusetts, I was helping my mother organize books in our library. Some shelves hold books that have resided there since 1973.<\/p>\n

My mother surprised me by saying, \u201cI put these books here thinking that you and your brother would read them. But you never did. I found that very disappointing. They just sat here all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked carefully at the shelf.<\/p>\n

\u2018These books?\u2019<\/p>\n

Here was a diverse collection of subjects: philosophy, history, art criticism, architecture, economics, psychology, social affairs, literature, photography and biographies among other topics.<\/p>\n

I took one from the shelf and opened it. Inside my name was written in blue ball point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read almost all of these books. See here\u2019s my name.\u201d<\/p>\n

I picked up another. \u201cI read this one twice, and I wrote a college paper on this one over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally? When did you read them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting about 1983, whenever I\u2019d go out making photographs, I bring a book with me. If I went to the Berkshires to photograph the Boston & Albany, I always have a book to read while waiting for trains to pass. Up there in the rocks and trees along the West End, I read countless books, including many of the books on that shelf. If I took a long train ride I\u2019d always have a book with me.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The railroad is my reading room. How many books have I read waiting trackside? In the 1980s I\u2019d often read within sight of this old bridge on Boston & Albany\u2019s West End. Image exposed on Kodak Verichrome Pan using a Rolleiflex Model T, October 20, 1985. What was I reading that day? Nietzsche or a book about the Roman Empire?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEven now, there\u2019s one of these books on the back seat of the car.\u201d (Veblen\u2019s The Theory of the Leisure Class).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI have a photo of Sean reading the book on propaganda at the Twin Ledges twenty years ago. And I remember reading all about the Borgia\u2019s one summer\u2019s day in the late 1980s waiting for Conrail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never knew that!\u201d She said delighted.<\/p>\n

Some of the books I\u2019d read so long ago that their words had blended with my own thoughts.<\/p>\n

The more I thought about it, the more the discussion about bookshelf astounded me.<\/p>\n

Here, I read all these books that had shaped my view of the world and with it my photography and it never occurred to me that my mother had specifically put them there for me to read, nor did she know that I\u2019d read them!<\/p>\n

Happy Mother\u2019s Day from Dublin!<\/span><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, 6 March 2016, is Mother\u2019s Day in Ireland. Some weeks ago when I was in Massachusetts, I was helping my mother organize books in our library. Some shelves hold books that have resided there since 1973. My mother surprised me by saying, \u201cI put these books here thinking that you and your brother would … Continue reading The Book Shelf.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[41,3384],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-3JO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14372"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14378,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions\/14378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}