In recent years, I have marked the launch of a new semester with a photo of the books that I will be teaching. The row of titles reminds me of what I must accomplish in the coming weeks, but, more importantly, it is a promise–a promise of great conversations to come, of surprising connections, of new ideas, of turns of phrase that I will savor long after the semester has ended.
This is the picture of the books I taught in fall 2013. I always put the semester’s books on a small shelf that sits next to my desk, within easy reach. I turn often to look at the spines and to reflect on what they promise. It occurs to me now that it is a luxury to know what I will read in a few weeks’ time–it’s almost a form of time travel. When I read the first book, I will have the fifth and the seventh and the last in mind. All the books come together in my imagination and help me make sense not only of each individual text, but of all aspects of my life during those weeks.
This semester, I am on sabbatical, which means that I am not teaching and will instead be using my time to write. I will be no less surrounded by books than when I am teaching–in fact, I expect I will read and re-read a wider range of texts–but I don’t know exactly which books will end up on my shelf. One book will remind me of another which will mention a third which will have influenced a fourth and so on. Following this chain of books is not unlike stepping through a door into a magical world–a central image for both my scholarship and my creative writing these days. The threshold sits solidly in front of me, but what lies beyond is an undiscovered country that I peer at with wonder and hope and even some thrilling trepidation.
So, I can’t post a picture of my bookshelf, but on this day (the first day of classes at my university, a day of beginnings for the teachers and students all around me) I will launch the semester with a picture of the books that form that threshold. If you look carefully, you will see that seven of these covers show portals of one kind or another. I can’t wait to see where they take me.
