The Corvallis Benton County Public Library has one of the highest usage rates in the country for a community of its size (the 50,000 – 100,000 category), a fact that makes me smile with quiet pride. Two years ago I was invited to join Random Reviews, a sub-committee of Friends of the Library. But this committee is unlike any other I have served on; we meet only once a year and the process is a joy.

About two months in advance of our meeting we submit our three book choices based on our reading that year (one book can be a classic) and present a written, often impassioned, case for why these books should be chosen by the committee for inclusion in the coming year’s ten Random Review books. We are also challenged to think of the perfect reviewer for each of our book choices, reviewers who are “a draw,” or experts on the topic–preferably both (an ability to speak in front of a crowd is a given).

Our valiant commitee chairs coordinate our work and send out a complete file; we then read every committee member’s choices in preparation for what is generally a four hour meeting. Picture it: you are in a room with twelve passionate bookworms, gladiators for books, each convinced that their recommendations should make the list, knowing they will be lucky if one makes the final cut. (To have two chosen means you must try not to preen). One by one each of us is granted time to make a plea for our books. Nonfiction trumps fiction the majority of the time (more people attend the reviews when nonfiction is presented–sad but true), but those of us who love fiction persist. Once everyone has made their case we vote. No secret ballot voting. Raised hands make it clear, sometimes painfully clear, that your book choices are not even contenders that year. Some books emerge clear victors; others are too close to call and another vote is taken. Reviewers are then chosen and committee members are assigned to do “the ask.” Book reviews are held once a month from September through June, so our last task is to assign which month each book will be presented in, subject to the availability of the reviewer.

However, when the final list is read, we feel a keen satisfaction and a recognition that the communal effort has yielded, yet again, a better list than any of our single efforts would create.

If you would like to read the Random Review lists (the program began in 2007) or listen to the actual reviews go to http://cbcpubliclibrary.net/random-reviews/

Is there anything more wonderful than immersing one’s self in a novel that honors the power of story and creates characters whose company we do not want to leave? When we reluctantly read the last page of such novels, we return slightly dazed to our “real” lives, yet more awake through a deepened compassion and heightened sensitivity to the complexity of the world around us.

This summer I have been enriched by The Painter by Peter Heller, Lucky Us by Amy Bloom, Life Drawing: A Novel by Robin Black, and We Are Called To Rise by Laura McBride. It is difficult to believe that McBride’s novel is a first book or Black’s a first novel.

Earlier this year I felt gifted by Frances and Bernard: A Novel by Carlene Bauer (written entirely through letters), The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman (first book), The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (also a first book and a marvelous mix of fantasy and evocation of historical New York and the immigrant experience–and one of my Random Review nominations this year). I await eagerly, and rather impatiently, their next novels, as I do Julie Orringer’s work based on the life of Varian Fry following her masterful The Invisible Bridge.

And for anyone teaching a class on fiction or fiction writing, I highly recommend Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs. The first page and a half of this novel accomplish two things novelists lust after–a beginning that takes the reader by the throat and the establishment of the main character’s unique voice, a woman fueled and wounded by anger and loneliness. Brilliant.

I have a passion for beautiful cards and paper. Some might even call it an obsession. I look for them wherever I go, often finding them in bookstores, art galleries, and charming gift shops.  Past finds have been companies like Stonehenge Publications, (www.stonehengedesigns.com) in the Corbett neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, a two-person company which specializes in cards with beautiful photographs accompanied by quotations from poets, writers, and philosophers. These cards are further enhanced by an easily detached bookmark that bears an image from the photograph and includes the quotation. In 2010, the owners opened Stonehenge Studios where they host art openings, poetry readings, concerts and storytelling events. Deborah DeWit Marchant, an Oregon photographer and painter, also has an exquisite line of cards with carefully chosen quotations. She has written a book about her artistic process called Traveling Light:  Chasing an Illuminated Life. Her cards can be found at her website, (http://www.dewit-marchant.com). Another favorite card company is Two Bad Mice out of England; these cards are small with charming watercolors, often touched by whimsy.

Recently I discovered a new artist, Pamela Zagarenski, whose cards are created from her own artwork accompanied by quotations from Hafiz to Lewis Carroll and from Meister Eckhart to Gunilla Norris.   If you can’t find her cards in any of your local stores, you can go to her website, www.pzagarenski.com, and order cards directly from her. She lives in Mystic, Connecticut and currently only one gallery back East  carries her paintings. I am hoping one day she will have a show on the West Coast. I discovered an interview with her at blaine.org, a blog about books called Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. If you click on interviews with illustrators, an alphabetized list will come up. The interview contains information that captures something of Zagarenski’s personality and creative approaches, illustrated with many of her paintings. She is also an award winning children’s book illustrator; this last year she illustrated the Caldecott Honor Book, Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue. In October of 2013 her illustrations will grace a children’s book written by Joyce Sidman called What the Heart Knows:  Charms, Chants, Blessings. I find her artwork both whimsical, symbolic, and marked by spiritual wisdom.

For those of you who reside in Oregon, I will share a few of my favorite places to find cards:  my beloved local independent bookstore, Grass Roots Books & Music (Corvallis); the lobby of the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Nye Beach (the card buyer there has superb taste); and in Portland–The Arrangement on Fremont Ave.,  Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village, and Broadway Books.

But finding beautiful cards is only part of the quest for “the perfect card.” Part of the art is selecting the right card for a specific person or occasion. When I buy cards, I organize them in a two-sided cloth pouch. The left side is organized by month and is reserved primarily for birthdays. The other side contains a variety of cards that could be used for other specific occasions or simply a card for a particular person for no reason other than to evoke delight. If a card “speaks” a specific person’s name, I put that person’s name on the envelope to “reserve it.” I strongly prefer my cards to be blank inside because I want to write my own messages.

I admit that having a passion for beautiful cards can be an expensive venture. However, I derive such pleasure from cards. Sometimes I will place a card on a small easel and enjoy its beauty before I send it out to the person it is intended for. Other times I will sit in my window seat and look through all the cards in my pouch (and the ones that spill over into my desk drawers when my collection is abundant). I simply enjoy touching the quality of the paper, delighting in the images, thinking about the people I will send them to. In a time when letters are being replaced by quick emails, cards are a gift of beauty, an act of remembrance and regard.

The one certainty I have about creativity is that it will continue to fascinate me, draw me.

For many of us, the search for our purpose in life is a creative search. Though our purpose may be expressed in our work, for others it lies in a specific talent, in volunteer work, or their spiritual journey. If you are engaged in a search for purpose and creativity, I would highly recommend two books that I have read recently: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Sir Ken Robinson and Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy by Joan Chittister.

I must confess I have three shelves in my main bookcase devoted to creativity, some with a general focus, but most with a focus on writing or the arts. As a child, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I did not have any role models and schools at that time seldom offered artist residencies or meet the writer programs. I did not consciously realize I read biography to find role models, but I also found inspiration in fiction, most notably in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and her character of Jo, a role model I share with many other women writers. I must have read that book thirty times. Over the years I have read many fiction and nonfiction books about creativity. I tried to make a “Top Ten” list, but it turned into a “Top Twenty-ish List.” I offer these nonfiction books in the hope they will provide inspiration to you as well:

*Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story, by Christina Baldwin

*The Art Spirit by Robert Henri

*The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde

*Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born by Denise Shekerjian

*Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

*Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider (She also has a new book coming out in April 2013 called How The Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice).

*The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

*Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’ Engle

*The Writer’s Home Companion: An Anthology of the World’s Best Writing Advice, from Keats to Kunitz edited by Joan Bolker

*Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distractions, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life by Bonnie Friedman

*Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

*Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer’s Vocation by William Stafford

*If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit by Brenda Ueland

*Voice Lessons: On Becoming a (Woman) Writer by Nancy Mairs

*The Writer on her Work, Volumes I and II, edited by Janet Sternburg

*Pen on Fire: a busy woman’s guide to igniting the writer within by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

*Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival edited by Marilyn Kallet and Judith Ortiz Cofer

*Telling Time, Angels, Ancestors, and Stories by Nancy Willard

*My Name Is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (These two novels had to sneak into this list, since I re-read them every few years. In addition to Potok’s exploration of creativity and of what it means to be an artist, I simply love to be in the company of these characters).

Though I worked many years directing arts non-profit organizations that were guided by a desire to nurture artists and serve the community, ironically, the creative work I found most fulfilling was the work I was most unprepared for–bringing the arts into pediatrics at a major medical center. I had no medical background or child development background; instead, I experienced the hospital environment as the children and parents experienced it (Grief and Healing).

The ways creativity expresses itself are endless–a great deal of exciting, innovative work is being done in groups dedicated to protecting our environment, lifting people out of poverty, humanizing medical environments, revitalizing our educational systems, creating community for people isolated by loneliness. For the individuals engaged in this work, whatever the specific shape, it requires dedication, leadership, an ability to respond to change, a spirit of inclusivity and collaboration, and sometimes what feels like infinite patience. Margaret Wheatley’s work stands out to me. Though she lays out her theories in Leadership and the New Science, I prefer her more personal book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, and her most recent book showcasing creative work in diverse communities around the globe, Walk Out Walk on: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now. You can also read about her work at www.berkana.org.

I would love to hear about books that have inspired and supported your creativity. Please feel free to contact me.