I recently purchased Wide Open, an awesome set of inspiration cards for journaling, and today I’ve been looking through the journal that comes with the set. It also has prompts and tips. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know I love journaling and crafting but it’s been some time since I’ve felt the urge to create, mainly due to just not finding enough time. Anyway, I know my creativity spark will come back and in the meantime I’ll play with these cards and be inspired.

One exercise in the creativity notebook that did catch my attention was on collecting movie lines. The author encourages you to think about your favorite movie lines and use those in your art. Well, I have a terrible memory when it comes to movie lines (same thing for remembering a joke’s punch line) so that’s not useful to me but I do have a collection of book excerpts that I’ve liked.

I used to write these down in a book journal and I realize I don’t do this as much anymore. Well, I do write lines that I’ll use for a blog post/review but once that’s done I don’t keep a record of them outside the blog. I think I need to start doing that again. Want to see what some of the jottings in my journals are? Here are a couple:

• “Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life, he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment” ~ from Of Human Bondage
• “What really knocks me out is a book, that when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” ~ from The Catcher in the Rye

Do you keep a collection of favorite lines from books too?

Well, not really new books as my recent acquisitions are from BookMooch and Half Price Books, but still new books to me. My mooches are:

Dissolution by C.J. Samson. From Publisher’s Weekly: Murders on the grounds of a monastery, 16th-century intrigue, an unconventional sleuth-readers might wonder if this is a knock-off Name of the Rose set two centuries later, but Sansom’s debut is a compelling historical mystery in its own right, with fewer pyrotechnics and plenty of period detail. Sounds interesting doesn’t it?

Wideacre by Philippa Gregory. From Publisher’s Weekly: Gregory’s full-blown first novel is a marvelously assured period piece, an English gothic with narrative verve. I haven’t read anything else by Gregory aside from The Other Boleyn Girl but I’ve meaning to read more.

I made a quick trip to Half Price Books the other day and used my 40% off coupon to get Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I loved Purple Hibiscus so I’m looking forward to this story. The other book was Ordinary Springs by Lenore Hart.

Better yet, I still have coupons to use the rest of the week so I’ll be taking advantage of those. Anyone else have coupons for Half Price Books?

We just got back from seeing a documentary on typography, Helvetica. Did you know that this typeface is just now celebrating its 50th year? It hasn’t been around that long but it’s everywhere you look. I know, you are probably thinking I’ve lost my mind because why else would I be interested in a font, but being that I’m married to a graphic designer who also does calligraphy, fonts are something we do talk about sometimes.

When we found out this indie film was being shown at the AFI Film festival we had to go. It was really exciting to hear the prespectives from some of the most well-known graphic designers in the world and they are so freaking witty to boot. Anyway, if this ever shows in your part of the world do go see it.

After all as one of the designers said, typography affects everyone because if you read something with the wrong typeface you will know it because it will be hard to read the text. See, I did bring all around to talk about books somehow.

Anyway, regular book talk resumes tomorrow. I have to tell you about book mooches and a trip to Half Price Books.