by Richard K Munro

The perfect Book Nook or private library has at least one plush leather chair preferably with a rocker and nice padded as I have in the corner. It is an old friend I have owned it for over 30 years and my father enjoyed using it. I always let my father have my best chair and I would sit in my mother’s chair, my second-best chair. It is a carpeted room. My chair has its own special lamp. I have a ceiling fan for the summer plus some built-in lights. My room has a table for study plus two desks and many bookshelves, some decorated with fossils, busts, baseball memorabilia, and toy soldiers. I have an electric pencil sharpener I use almost daily. I have over 60 composition notebooks filled with language notes and about 20 blank ones for future use.  I have windows that look out towards the garden and in the summer, I see many birds and squirrels dancing about. We live in a very quiet neighborhood next to a nice park with trees, a pond, and paths to walk.  To the left of my desk, I have a French door that opens to the covered patio which has chairs and a table on which I study on find days in the spring, fall, and early winter. It has a screen door from which I can hear music in my rooms. I have no TV in my book nook but I have a radio on my BOSE CD player and many CD’s chiefly classical. And of course, I sometimes watch YouTube videos on my laptop (but not often).  My music is chiefly from SPOTIFY, but also via my phone and BOSE Microlink (Itunes) . In the Spring summer and Fall, I often listen to baseball games on the porch or in the library while reading or doing language studies. I used to listen to the radio a lot but now mostly listen to Audible books or podcasts.

There is plenty of storage for paper. I have a printer connected to the laptop.  In my library I have about ten reems on the shelves and two in a drawer under the printer. I have a larger supply in reserve in the garage. I have three chairs besides the leather chair. Next to the leather chair, I have a side table that belonged to my father with a drawer. Another chair belonged to my mother and is about 65 years old. I have boxes for index cards and coffee mugs filled with #2 pencils, colored pencils Bausch and Lomb magnifying glasses. In a wooden box, I have a chrome Cross Pen that belonged to my father. The box has a spare cartridge I use the pen to sign personal letters or important documents. I have a phone next to my laptop and a brass hand winding, Tiffany clock, hydrometer, barometer, and thermometer. It is my backup case of a blackout, and it serves as a paperweight. I have two staplers on my desk It was a retirement gift to my father in 1976. Next to the phone is a reproduction of Myron’s Discobolus or “discus thrower”, Greek: Δισκοβόλος, Diskobólos). I picked this up at the Vatican circa 1972; they have a wonderful full-sized marble Roman copy found, I believe, at Hadrian’s Villa.  The Greek original in bronze is lost but we know the work from numerous Roman copies.  Munich there is a fine Roman bronze reproduction of Myron’s Discobolus, 2nd century AD.  I have several busts of famous historical figures some American but mostly Greek, Roman, classical composers or literary figures.

I have a tall glass display case filled with a model of the SANTA MARIA, that my mother, my son and I put together one Christmas before her death (1992 I believe). My mother did the rigging. There are also “ruins” and dioramas of charging Elastolin Roman soldiers on food and horses, Huns, Goths, and Normans (the “Barbarians”. They date back to 1963-1971. There are a few I/R figures and French Starluxe mixed in. There are two chariots and some Roman siege weapons. On the mantle of my fireplace, I have cards, models, and toy soldiers. I have a Lewis and Clark Diorama I bought at a museum in Iowa in 2004 (it includes Sacagawea and York).  I have followed almost the entire trail of Lewis and Clark starting in 1982 and finishing in 2004. On the walls I have art reproductions and historical photographs I have collected over the past 60 years such as Churchill holding a tommy gun I have for example a full-size museum replica of ATHENA MOURNING.  At my main desk, I have books of quotations, reference books, and dictionaries. I use the Internet and electronic dictionaries but find book versions easier to study and for annotations.  I have a variety of English dictionaries. The one I use the most is the 4edtion American Heritage. One of my favorites is the Oxford Companion to English Literature – a nice leather-bound edition. It is the 5th edition edited by Margaret Drabble which is the last edition to have complete commentaries on Walter Scott and other classic authors. I have an extensive library of English language books chiefly classics, biographies, and histories but also baseball books and large-sized art reproduction books. I also have a modest library of Latin books (many bilingual), Greek books including the Bible (I am studying Greek presently, Gaelic books (chiefly song books and poetry but some history and nonfiction), many (hundreds) of Spanish books, some Portuguese books, some French books, some German books. I have a German-Spanish dictionary for example and a Latin-Spanish dictionary. One of my favorite reference books is MAMMALS of the WORLD (1964) which is very useful for ascertaining the indigenous names of mammals in many languages and of course which has curious animal facts and thousands of black-and-white photographs.

I can’t say I have been EXTREMELY productive as a writer in my life but I have read and studied much and been able to teach many. Review reading via rote rehearsal is effective but it is always better to note take and create study cards from notes and use colors and pictures whenever possible. ’

I know Spanish very well, for example, and often speak it but I read and review Spanish at least 20-30 minutes a day (I don’t usually take any notes). For new languages such as Italian or Greek, I take notes sentences dialogues, and translations and write new vocabulary, I draw colored pictures and copy words that give me difficulty three times over and highlight them with yellow. I probably practice 5-7 languages a day. I read Portuguese very well but found I speak it less well since I have not used it daily for more than 40 years. But I practice listening and speaking via Duolingo and so have regained most of my former fluency. I never lost my ability to read but found my writing had declined due to lack of practice and when speaking I tended to fall into Spanish. My book nook is my quiet refuge from the world.