books

Books I'm Enjoying

I'm enjoying this design book by Gingko Press about typography & branding. The book shows different styles of typography and divides the book into categories like elegant, handwritten, experimental, minimal. Of course I am drawn to the handwritten section and love looking at the different ways brands have incorporated handwritten typography into their various branding elements.

My book group's selection for March. In an attempt to have less clutter, I am trying to buy more ebooks. I'm still getting used to ebooks, I'm so old school that way because I love the feel of paper and having a book in my hands.

I probably should have bought this as an ebook because it is so long (962 total pages!) but it was on sale at Powell's (the amazing book store here in Portland, Oregon) and I couldn't pass it up since I had read so many good things about this book. This is going to take me some time to read but what I've read so far I've found thoughtful.

This book is about parenthood and to what extent do parents accept their children's limitations and love them for who they are, and how far should parents help their children become their best selves. He examines this from the point of view of parents who are dealing with children with differences such as deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. He looks at how these differences unites these families.

There is a quote about parenting that really resonated with me: "Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children's faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination."

I hope you are also enjoying your own reading adventures!