Gift of A Letter - Book Report
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- In this video I review the book: "Gift of A Letter" by Alexandra Stoddard. Published in 1990 - this little book seems timeless and is a real treasure! Even though stamps have gone from 25 cents to 73 cents and now we are completely wired with internet and smart phones ... this book reads fresh and true even in 2024. I am grateful to Andrew Brendan for mentioning the book over on Hemmingway Jones' live stream last week!
In the video I talk about how I learned about this book, where I purchased mine, and all about the book plus my likes and dislikes .... spoiler alert: I love this book!
What's not to love about a charming little book with a fountain pen, ink and writing supplies on the cover that proceeds to inspire and uplift ... + fully validate our letter writing efforts!!!
If you, like me, missed this book ... I think you'll want to read it.
Link to Thrift Books (PS not sponsored but they sure are a great place to pick up books!):
www.thriftbook...
Or Amazon:
www.amazon.com...
Thank you so much for watching! Let's discuss this book (or others) in the comments below!
My Instagram: / snowball7470
My Pen Email: chris@inkswatch.com
The stand-out item for me is the fact that in the US you only pay 73c for an inland postage stamp! In Ireland we pay €1.40 ($1.55)!
Still, as the book says, a hand-written personal letter is a gift and I don't begrudge paying more for the postage than you lucky people in the States! I enjoy writing letters and of course receiving them. It is very true that you should tailor your letter to the person who you're writing to. All my penfriends get different letters from me even when I write more or less at the same time about the same thoughts and events.
Hi @christopherbritton293 oh wow $1.55 for a domestic stamp is very steep! Our international one ounce stamp is $1.65 currently. It jumps wildly for small packages we have to go to international first class which last time I checked was well over $20 and when I did a giveway sending parcels to Denmark and Brazil the packages were over $30.00 each. This is a shame because I'd love to send things to pen pals overseas.
A friend gave me this book for Christmas 1994 because she knew I used fountain pens. “Charming” is the right word for it!
Hi Susan -- oh how cool -- yes this is a hidden gem that I'm glad made it's way to my awareness and to my bookshelf!
As a fountain-pen hobbyist, I'm often searching for more ways (besides note-taking and journaling) to incorporate pen & ink into my everyday life. Drawing/painting is one, while personal corresponding is another. So this subject had my ears perking up at attention. What a lovely, fascinating book you have there! Letter-writing has been sporadic on my part, but I've now added GIFT OF A LETTER to my shopping wishlist. Perhaps it can help me become a more reliable pen-pal? Thanks, Chris, for another thought-provoking video!
Hi @INCWorks -- this little book has inspired me a lot and I do write pen pal letters every week -- maybe averaging 4 letters at least per week but after reading this I feel even more good about the time spent writing letters! It's a special little book. The author admits she doesn't always hear back from those she writes to but outlines very worthy reasons to keep writing anyway!!!!! :)
Ooo, I want to own this book and read it! I have Alexandra Stoddard’s book Tea Celebrations and I look through it whenever I want to feel cozy, especially in late autumn. I love writing letters even if the return rate is low-the recipients tell me they love my letters via text. 😅 Thank you for sharing the book and your wonderful review!! ❤
LOL - I have trouble with texting ... I write too much I'm sure. :) My emails are like books. But, wow it's nice to have all the choices of hand written letters and cards, emails and texts these days. When my closest friend moved from Texas to NY it really hit home!
My goodness I'll have to look for her Tea Celebration book! Thank you for mentioning it!
Hi Chris- Great book review and recommendation; thank you! Enjoy the rest of the week and best regards, as always!
Hi Mike - thank you happy weekend to you!!!!
Great book review, Chris! It's based on the perfect topic for your channel.
Funny how your cats are always creating mischief during your broadcasts. :-)
Hi Kurt -- lol .... yes, my cats behave like toddlers when I get on the phone or in front of a camera!!! Honestly, they get up from a deep nap to get active and noisy for the videos. :)
Thanks for the recommendation and the great review, Chris. I found the book on the digital library, Internet Archive, if somebody is intetested in reading the digital version.
Oh that's wonderful it is available there thank you for letting us know!!!! :)
There's so many people that do write letters still, it's surprising that there's no real reviews for looseleaf paper and writing tablets from retailers. (There's occasionally something written, tucked in basically the back of their websites, but really nothing other than that.)
Recently, Adam from An Ink Guy actually reviewed some looseleaf paper! It was great to finally see a review! Other than you and very few others. 😉
Great to see this review! Restores faith that other people do write. Lots of good stuff in this book, sounds like. Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Paul -- this is a good reminder for me to follow thru with my intentions to review more writing paper. I'm always a little bit leery of it because I use broad nibs and this will produce different results than F nibs but .. I think I could ink a few different nibs for the occasion! :)
@@ChrisSaenz13 Closest I've ever seen from a retailer is an almost offhand mention of Clairefontaine envelopes by Brian Anderson, but it was when they were discontinued...
Read, Letters From Seneca. They are wonderful and led me to be curious about Seneca's life. When I was in my early teens, I had penpals and very much enjoyed writing and receiving letters. I was just using ballpoint pens but I did try to find pretty stationery. My favorite penpal was from Wisconsin. I remember that because she was a Green Bay Packers fan. I don't write any letters now. Mabe I could change that. Thanks for the interesting book review.
Hi Teresa -- oh I just started on Letters from Seneca -- it's amazing. There is a guy on You Tube (channel: Accepting the Universe) who is doing a sort of bookclub and making videos responding to each letter which I find really nice to listen to!
@@ChrisSaenz13 I'll look up that channel. Thanks!
Thank you for this nice review. I have been trying to start writing letters for a while now. So far my efforts stall really fast. The "Antinet..." book caught my eye right away. My husband is all into building his own memory/information system... Unfortunately he is doing it with a computer code using the principals of zetakasen . I am looking forward to hearing your impressions. Thank you again
Hi @kykynestyf7742 oh that's cool ... this is my first intro to the topic of Zettelkasten - I am learning about how an analog one compares with digital in the book too. :) He addresses cases where one might benefit more from the digital type but the author has a strong preference for analog - pen and paper on index cards! And, he uses fountain pens too!
There is also the book of Vincent Van Gogh's "Life in Letters" which has letters that he has written.
Oooh this sounds really interesting ... thanks for mentioning!
Sounds an interesting book 👍. Last year, I started reading Mozart's letters (free on the Project Gutenberg website) interesting to read. He could also be quite crude, and sometimes, what he'd written didn't seem to make any sense at all. I've kept meaning to go back online and finish reading them.
Hi @annie8075 I always wonder if I'll understand what's being written ... if it's in the old fashioned script especially ... but I'm thinking it's worth a trip to the library to see what I can find!!!!
Wonderful book report, and one I'll have to add to my Library, thanks 😊! For online letters, I frequent the Library of Congress loc.gov to see images of letters in cursive by our Founding Fathers. Also, Coco should get a cameo appearance once in a while in your videos, he'd probably be grateful 🐈 🐯
Hi @JRDiaz-tn5kb -- lol Coco is overdo for an appearance he generally does appear in videos from time to time! :)