A Wealth of Stories

From rare books to James Bond, it's been quite a day.

After a photo at Platform 9 3/4, we went to the British Library to see the Treasure Room, perhaps look at some books (though that didn't quite work out for me), and see the Writing Britain exhibit. I now have a British library card, yet another excuse to come back.

I can't even begin to detail the incredible works of creativity and ingenuity that I gazed at for two hours in the Treasures room. Works by Chaucer and Wordsworth, music manuscripts by Ravel and Beethoven, illuminated pages from the Qu'ran and the Haggadah--I even saw Uighur script!

From there, I visited the Writing Britain exhibit--a collection, by type of landscape, of the writings and thoughts on the importance of landscape and geography in British literature dating back to Chaucer. I especially loved the section on the moors, which features works by Emily Bronte, Ted Hughes, Wordsworth, Daphne du Maurier, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and more.

A quote from the exhibit: "Literary encounters with the wild places threaten and sometimes overwhelm, the individual. Divorced from the rational order, humans revert to savagery, and culturally constructed norms seem suddenly fragile and precarious." --Writing Britain, British Library.

I could feel my imagination feeding on the creativity around me--the air pulsing with stories. I wrote down the names of dozens of books to look for when I return home, as well as quotes and thoughts on writing and landscape, especially landscape as character. "How do you write about a place that is disobedient?" --Writing Britain, British Library.

We had a rare day of sunshine today, and warm temperatures, so I opted to walk and see the city at footstep pace. And I had a ways to go--the museum I was headed to turned out to be further than I thought!

This multimedia session wouldn't be complete without another homage to an influential movie franchise...James Bond. The Barbican has an exhibit entitled "Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style." From the gold-flecked floor when you first enter, to the stunning outfits and gadgets and jewelry and vehicles and...I could go on and on. It was a day of riches of all kinds, a day that never dies.