Between the Pages

 I'm back! Welcome to the Day 11 recap.  Day 11 CITIES Today was our Cambridge + Boston day, and I must say, Boston is certainly one of the better cities we've been to on this trip. I'm not a city girl, but Boston went fairly well today. Ubers and crosswalks and intersections: I feel like a city success tonight.  BOOKSTORES Brattle Book Shop This bookstore was not originally on my Boston list; however, our docent at the Rosenbach suggested we go to this store, so we decided to give it a go. To be honest, it wasn't my favorite. The store is not in the best part of town, but that can mean you've really found an awesome store. Unfortunately, we did not find an awesome store. While it is advertised as a rare and used bookstore, which I would normally love, the selection was not amazing. The coolest thing, however, about this store is the outdoor stalls, and they are, in fact, very cool. I just hyped up this bookstore a little too much in my head (I suffer from "boo...

 I'm back! Welcome to the Day 10 recap.  Day 10 CITIES We woke up in sunny Providence , RI this morning. After finishing up in Providence, we headed to Plainville , MA (which was lovely). After Plainville and a much-needed stop at Target (the Target we pillaged and plundered deserves to be named a city unto itself, as it was massive), we moved on to Concord , MA then Cambridge , MA. BOOKSTORES An Unlikely Story To preface, I have read about this little store in a lot of literary magazine articles, online pieces, and bookstore coffee table books. (yes, these exist. yes, I have acquired quite the collection of them. no, I do not have a coffee table of my own.) An Unlikely Story certainly did not disappoint. As soon as I walked in, I knew this store was a special place; the community's place; a place especially pertinent in the lives of Plainville kids. With a whimsical Harry Potter theme, quidditch brooms and letters hung from the ceiling, An Unlikely Story certainly had me feel...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 9 recap.  Day 9 CITIES This morning, we left New York City, and to be honest, I'm relieved. Rat race = real. (The city during the summer also smells like rats, so that analogy is applicable on multiple levels.) We drove to New Haven, then to Newport, then to Providence. Today was one of the best days of the trip. LIBRARIES Libraries at Yale University We saw two libraries at Yale today: Sterling Memorial Library and Beinecke Rare Book Library .  Sterling is the main library of the university and was opened in 1931. Architect, James Gamble Rogers designed the space as a centerpiece of Yale's Gothic architecture. Actually, Rogers approached the university with a design for a cathedral; however, the administration told him that what Yale actually needed was a library. Rogers simply changed the title of his plans from "church" to "library." The library holds over 4 million volumes. The university's manuscripts and archives a...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 8 recap.  Day 8 CITIES Today was our last day in NYC. We took it slow today, as the past two days have been hard on our feet. MUSEUMS The Metropolitan Museum of Art While I have been to the MET before, I am always blown away by the juxtaposition between the scale and magnitude of the museum and how significant just one canvas or one ceramic bowl can be to me. The MET has been the setting of many a children's/young adult book. One particularly great one is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler .  Aside from being an important setting in books and movies, literature inspires art, and art inspires literature. I saw hundreds of paintings and sculptures today of biblical figures. Religion in general as well as the Holy Bible has inspired many of the greatest works of art. Other notable pieces of literature that have inspired the creation of major works of art are Invisible Man, Ophelia, The Lady of Shalott, Dubling, and Don Quixote...

I'm back! We have officially been on this journey for a whole week. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome to the day 7 recap. Day 7 CITIES Today was another NYC day. I had a plan today. Now, I've had a plan every day, but this morning I got to business early. I got out my G-2 ballpoint pen that I love so much, and I wrote down each stop that we were going to at *specific* times. I also wrote down the walking times between each stop. I had three different plans based on the location of our breakfast location.  We ubered (is this a verb?) to our breakfast spot in south Manhattan and found ourselves at the gathering area for the New York City pride parade. A lot of streets were closed and blocked off. Most of the stores and publishers I planned for us to go to were along the parade route. We walked back to our hotel and decided to change our plans.  LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE STOPS The Central Park Carousel The Central Park Carousel appears in J.D. Salinger's first and most well-know...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 6 recap.  Day 6 CITIES Today was our first NYC day, and I believe it was the best day in "the city that never sleeps" that I have ever had. I can say with absolute surety that New York City is better than both Philadelphia and Baltimore. I might have stepped on a couple toes there, but if you are honest with yourself, you'll agree with me.  LIBRARIES The New York Public Library While I have visited the NYPL once before, I looked at the building, inside and out, with fresh eyes today - not just the eyes of a tourist, but with the eyes of a reader and an intellectual citizen. So, without any more prologue, here are a number of things I learned in and about the NYPL today.  The New York Public Library serves over 3.5 million people in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Established as an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organization in 1895, the library has accumulated quite a collection over the years. Amazingly, I got to see...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 5 recap.  Day 5 CITIES We started off our day in Philadelphia where we promptly left. We drove to West Chester which was the cutest small town. From there, we went to Princeton . Finally, we arrived in New York City tonight.  BOOKSTORES Baldwin's Book Barn We visited one bookstore today, and it was certainly my favorite so far: Baldwin's Book Barn. The store is a five-story barn built in 1822 that exudes bookish charm. Wood-burning fireplaces, stone walls, large wooden doors, and hundreds of shelves bursting with books, maps, and prints are what make the book barn so special.  William and Lila Baldwin established their book and collectible store in 1934 in Wilmington, Delaware. They moved to "the Barn" in 1946. The old milking house was converted into a permanent residence for the family while the barn was filled with books. Over 300,000 used and rare books reside in the barn today. The store has been featured on CSPAN (oh yeah!) an...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 4 recap. Day 4 CITIES Or, make that heading "city" singular. We spent all of our time in Philadelphia today. Today was a good day. So much so that I began calling this city, which I have been to only a handful of times, "Philly." Philly was kind to us today. We ate great food, walked some beautiful streets, and viewed hundreds of impressive books.  LIBRARIES The Rosenbach Located in Rittenhouse Square, the Rosenbach is an elegant 19th-century townhome filled with one of the greatest collections of manuscripts, first editions, artwork, and rare works of literature. The list of priceless items collected by the Rosenbach brothers in the 1900s is long: the original manuscripts of James Joyce's Ulysses , first edition Jane Austen books and Don Quixote , and Lewis Carroll's own copy of Alice in Wonderland . Dr. Rosenbach was "the Napoleon of the auction room," where he bartered and fought for priceless manuscripts to col...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 3 recap! Day 3 CITIES We were physically in three main cities today: Charlottesville , Baltimore , and Philadelphia. We only did activities/site-saw in one of those cities. Today, we visited the George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University and another bookstore, Greedy Reads, in Baltimore, Maryland.  LIBRARIES We had the opportunity to visit the most Instagram-able library of every Pinterest girl's dreams: the George Peabody Library. Social media aside, it truly is breathtaking. As soon as we walked into the beautiful, heavy wooden doors, I knew this would be a memorable experience. George Peabody's vision for this library during its conception in 1878 was for it to be a "cathedral of books." Peabody, philanthropist and patron of the humanities, created the library to be a center of arts and culture for the people of his beloved Baltimore. The George Peabody Library was America's first music conservatory. The Peabody Institu...

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 2 (the first *official* day) recap.  Day 2 CITIES We visited stops in Charlottesville and Richmond today. There is an hour's drive between the cities, and I am overall glad that we made the trek into Richmond today.  AUTHOR'S HOUSES Monticello Today, we had the pleasure of visiting Monticello, the original home of the United States's third President, author of the Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia: Thomas Jefferson. While I last visited Monticello when I was eight years old, Jefferson's home and gardens held a new significance to me this time around. While its beauty and grandeur is well-founded, the literary air captured my attention.  Enlightenment thinker, scientist, writer, and politician, Thomas Jefferson was a reader above all. Jefferson's interests, which were varied and largely important to his long life, were reflected in his book collection, covering various subjects including  "vi...