World Poetry Day, Medieval Scribes, Church Bells, White Lotus-esque Reads & More: Endnotes 21 March

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

Today is World Poetry Day! There’s never a bad time to read a poem or two, but today, it’s even better than usual! Designated in 1991 by UNESCO, this annual celebration of poets and poetry is an excellent excuse to let your imagination play in the words of a poem. To get you started, here are 22 poems from around the world with a strong sense of place, a lovely poem about Vincent Van Gogh, ‘The Raven’ (stone-cold classic) by Edgar Allan Poe, and our personal favorite: ‘The Tiger,’ written by a six-year-old named Nael. You might also enjoy these episodes of The Library of Lost Time: meet the Typewriter Rodeo, enjoy two poems that celebrate the passage of time and fresh starts, tips for finding your favorite poems, and a lively discussion with author Amy Tector about creating daily poetry habit.

• Oooh! The Table of Contents newsletter — ‘writing, recipes, discussions, and recommendations at the intersections of food and literature — is tasty fun!

• Wow, like this beatnik glossary swings like sixteen.

• The Mirror & the Light miniseries, the conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, will be on PBS in the US on 23 March! Here’s some good stuff to get you hyped up for the downfall of our beloved Thomas Cromwell: BBC interviews with the primary cast members, a chat with the costume designer, and a guide to the stunning locations where it was filmed.

• As we explained in our Strong Sense of Place episode Cemetery: Celebrate Life, Honor the Dead, visiting a historic cemetery can be a surprisingly good time. The first we ever visited was Père Lachaise in Paris. Here’s a guide to 5 other interesting Paris cemeteries.

• Sorta related: This 2-minute weekly podcast from the BBC is pretty cool. Each episode features the ringing of bells from 500+ churches.

• Love this story about an indigenous, all-women coffee collective in Mexico. ‘The Sat Kajpel Antsetik Cooperative, whose name literally translates to coffee with a woman’s face, is composed of 58 women from the region’s Indigenous Tseltal community… dedicated to closing gender gaps, improving access to education and empowering marginalized communities in Chiapas.’

• Irresistible headline: 20 Essential Tools of a Medieval Scribe. (Cribbed by the excellent ‘13 things’ newsletter from Caroline Crampton.)

• This week, I learned that the Bodleian Library in Oxford has a combo tour and afternoon tea on Thursdays! ‘Delve into the drama of the university and stories of student high jinks. Starting in the Divinity School and ending in the exquisite Duke Humfrey’s Library, hear how Oxford University maintained order in the 17th-century and also housed King Charles I’s parliament whilst the King was resident in Oxford during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Complement your tour with a traditional afternoon tea served in the café in the Weston Library.’

• Are you watching the new season of White Lotus? Here are the 20 best books like the White Lotus. I want to read all of them!

• Speaking of books I want to read: Nine Books Set on Trains That Show How They Changed the World. (If you also love books set on trains, please treat yourself to our podcast episode Trains: Better Than Planes and Cars. Fight Me.)

• How Mr. Darcy Became One of Jane Austen’s Most Memorable Creations. ‘In the book Mr. Darcy startles Elizabeth by emerging from the stables just as she’s leaving his house, but the encounter with wet Colin Firth draws also from Heathcliff’s emergence from the shadows and of Jane Eyre’s first sight of Rochester, galloping into sight on his horse, his great white and black dog running with him. Firth’s Darcy is Austen out of the Brontës.’

• Daydream fuel: a collection of hotels around the world that will ‘make you believe that you have suddenly become heir to a country estate.’ As much as I like the sphinx at the one in Ireland, I want to go to Troutbeck in New York right now.

• Where to see 10 of the world’s rarest flowers.

• These works by artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg combine fairy tales and dark dreams to make something equal parts creepy and whimsical. ‘Surreal birds, flowers, and beavers weave through the space… The exhibition is split across two floors, with a lighter, calmer selection of sculptures and moving image downstairs, which gives way to chaos above. The idea of good and evil is inherent, though the artists suggest these two things are harder to separate than we might like.’

New Episode of The Library of Lost Time

In each mini-podcast episode, we discuss two books at the top of our TBR, then share a fun book- or travel-related distraction. Get all the episodes and books galore here.

In this episode, we get excited about two new books: The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue and The Antidote by Karen Russell. Then Mel explains why you should give yourself a time-out on the floor. [transcript]

Links

• The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

• Video: Emma Donoghue at Politics and Prose bookstore

• The Antidote by Karen Russell

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

• Why Lying on the Ground Feels So Good

• How to Do a Legs-up-the-Wall Pose

Parts of the Strong Sense of Place podcast are produced in udio. Some effects are provided by soundly.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Top image courtesy of yeongkyeong lee/Unsplash.