I was just finishing a nightly episode of Poirot when your newsy letter arrived and I thought to myself how much you and Poirot have in common. Both of you use your little grey cells to the max.
Attention to the tiniest little thing gives us such a wonderful backstory for Emma.
Rather wonderful too, that the impetus for your detective work came from Mary B. I remember reading about that little book and her comment - 'Rebecca would love this...'
Soon, Rebecca, I shall expect to see you in the most perfectly tailored grey suit, maybe with patent shoes with spats. I can't wait to see what your next moment of sleuthing reveals.
Oh Prue, how lovely (and LOL!) to have compared me to Poirot! I LOVE that series - oh, is it the David Suchet version? He was absolutely terrific in the role - and gosh, that semi-sinister theme tune always gets my sleuthing juices flowing - I'm SUCH a Christie fan.
Mary B and Jim have been absolute stars to have supplied me with the inspiration for - and the meat of! - this post - I've really enjoyed working on it!
❤️ x a million! Thank you so very much to you both for the inspiration for this post, your stories for including in it AND for sending me the book! It'll be on its way back to you soon! 😊
A whole book of lists is so delightful. I wish I had kept my own adolescent book of lists - I loved to make lists then, in the very best sparkly gel pen ink - I would send it to you if I had it!
Sparkly green lists sound AWESOME, Alison! How great that you had a book of lists as a teenager - I bet it was full of all those really important things. It is a long regret of mine that I had never kept a diary, actually - and today I love looking through my six years of bullet journals (they're a source of ongoing reference for me, thanks to the index) and seeing what was happening and when - and how I felt about whatever-it-was at the time! 😊
'while S would stuff a basket with as many volumes of teen fiction as would fit, and would try to convince the librarian that she needed to borrow more than the prescribed four-volume limit² because ‘I am very intelligent and can read very fast.’'
Hey Rebecca! Long time no comment from me. The weird thing: I fell off of your email list somehow, and I feared you were disconsolate or dead or something even worse, and had quit Substack. Glad to see you're still here! The other thing of note: I owe my career (or, at least its launch) to the original BOL, which I reinterpreted to a ten-page "Resume of Lists." Just as weird as it sounds! Nonetheless it won me several job interviews and my very first journalism job, working for a techno-futurist magazine called NEXT. It died after a couple of years. That's the future for you. Glad to be back here! I missed your wanderings!
Grrrrrr! And how intriguing. You've made sense of something, though - I get pretty frequent notifications of new subscribers (thanks, guys!!!) but my total number of subscribers (not that I'm counting) doesn't seem to really shift*. Maybe Substack's employed a doorman from one of those nightclubs on a £1-a-pint student night: one in, one out! 🤣
*It's fine: I'm here to read and write, not count people. It's interesting, though.
Thank you so much for reading, Sue - I loved losing myself in this book of lists! And you're right - it's such fun finding things in books. I've just borrowed a book from my parents to refer to for a forthcoming post - and there are all sorts of things tucked in between its pages - that's not what that post is going to be about, but I'm really going to enjoy looking at all of those artefacts! 😁
Oooooh, yes I have - thanks, Sue! In fact I subscribe to both 'Lists of Note' and 'Letters of Note' right here on Substack - they're absolutely delightful - you see, this is why I'm always running out of time to read all of these glorious newsletters out there! 🤣💚😁
Taco cat goat cheese pizza!! WE LOVE this game. Oh my goodness, this is one of our card games along with Skip-Bo and UNO. This post made me smile and Pepperdine...my bother went there for Grad school. What a beautiful University. Have a great weekend Rebecca with your adventures! I believe The London Marathon is tomorrow. It's on my list. :)
Oh, it's amazing that I'd never heard of Taco cat goat cheese pizza - it seems like lots of other Substackers have! And gosh, what a small world - that your brother went to Pepperdine!
You're right - the London marathon was yesterday - I watched some of the live footage, and IT WAS INCREDIBLE! Can't wait to cheer you on in person when you come over to run it. 😊
Oh my! So much here to take in! I’m always making “lists” on scraps of paper, and they littler my dining table next to my appointment book. A dear friend—now passed—introduced me to a small book years ago she dubbed, “A Capture Device”. When I quizzed her on it, she said it’s a blank book where you jot down lists; thoughts; things to do… etc. I thought that was brilliant and got myself one. Mostly it contained the bills I paid, medicines, groceries, and doctor appointments I attended to for my dad when I cared for him for 7 years. I still have it.
That little stylized elephant on the back of the booklet, looked like a stylized turtle to me going in the opposite direction. Funny what one perceives at first glance. 🤔😉
Ooooh Gail, 'A Capture Device' - that's such a great way to look at it! I love how it sounds like a tool or a gadget - for that's exactly what a notebook is, isn't it?!
My life changed when I started using a notebook for lists - and indeed other things. Lists would be on loose pieces of paper or old envelopes or corners of napkins, and I had no way of organising anything that was on them. One list might have:
Buy cheese
Ring Mum
Save the world
Weed front path
Get new job
....and those things would be so incomprehensibly unrelated - and of such different scales - that I would never know where or how to start!
A turtle? Gosh yes, I see it, too! That's really interesting. 🤔
Wow! What a post! If I had found the MBoL, I would have instantly thought, "Rebecca!" and sent it to you. What a detective's mind you have. I loved everything here.
Of course I loved this! You have a wonderful way of turning something possibly ordinary into a full-blown, multi-chapter adventure story! And the mention of the American vs UK vocabulary choices had me smiling with recognition. I always chuckle remembering each time I learned that anything that had the prefix "English" on it as I had learned in America, it is usually just the plain word here: like Cucumber, or the band the Beat. But why not "English muffins"? Perhaps you can suss that one out sometime! 🤣🤣
LOL - thank you so much, Sabrina! It's funny - well, an English muffin is what I call a muffin, and that US baked good in a paper case that's kind of overflowingly crispy at the top and reminds me of the disaster zone around my trouser waistband is an American muffin! 🤣
Ah ha! Thanks for the explanation! So It is consistent then to call it just a muffin. and very much NOT the overly sweet deliciousness you call an American muffin. I like the symmetry there, if not the caloric value of an American muffin. Although an English muffin is nuthin' if not toasted and slathered in melting butter....🤣!
I do hope Emma came into the Austin Library to reclaim her book of lists; that is, unless she's filled it and started another one. Thank's for this tour through multiple lives in the UK and Austin. I love Austin.
Thanks so much for reading, Sue! Austin sounds terrific - I've loved learning about it from Mary B's posts. Last week I learned that her local supermarket holds 'tasting strolls' - I NEED to participate in one of those!
Just catching up on my stacks this morning, Rebecca. Like you, I’m so behind! The MBoL cover reminds me of my good friend (she’s Thai) who owns a mini-cooper! Apparently, it’s a popular car there. Before I moved my shopping list digitally, the notebook reminded me of my analog days. As always, a lovely and delightful read!
Oh, how lovely, Stella - what a great connection you have to this tiny book and where it came from!
All power to you for the digital shopping list. I have a list on my kitchen clipboard, but I do all of my grocery shopping online (unless I run out of something like milk or eggs, in which case I'll run to the Village Stores that's just two minutes away), so I guess I'm only half analogue myself!
Before my grocery delivery service changed my life for the better I had an A5 spiral-bound hardback notebook in the kitchen - on the left-hand page I'd write the things I needed to get, just in random order, as I thought of them during the week, and then on the day I was going shopping I would sit down with a cup of tea and rewrite my shopping list on the blank right-hand page with the items listed in the order in which I would encounter them at the supermarket. I'd take the whole book with me, and found this kind of curated list faaaaaar easier to shop with than a list that's just in random order, and that way I could minimise the time I spent shopping.
Yes! Thats how my analog shopping list is organized— according to the aisle or section making it an efficient shopping experience! And lessens the chances of forgetting something and going back at a later time to get it. This method has saved us! Our digital shopping list is organized the same way! 😀
I was just finishing a nightly episode of Poirot when your newsy letter arrived and I thought to myself how much you and Poirot have in common. Both of you use your little grey cells to the max.
Attention to the tiniest little thing gives us such a wonderful backstory for Emma.
Rather wonderful too, that the impetus for your detective work came from Mary B. I remember reading about that little book and her comment - 'Rebecca would love this...'
Soon, Rebecca, I shall expect to see you in the most perfectly tailored grey suit, maybe with patent shoes with spats. I can't wait to see what your next moment of sleuthing reveals.
Cheers...
Oh Prue, how lovely (and LOL!) to have compared me to Poirot! I LOVE that series - oh, is it the David Suchet version? He was absolutely terrific in the role - and gosh, that semi-sinister theme tune always gets my sleuthing juices flowing - I'm SUCH a Christie fan.
Mary B and Jim have been absolute stars to have supplied me with the inspiration for - and the meat of! - this post - I've really enjoyed working on it!
Only ever and always Suchet, Rebecca. Incomparable!
I agree!!!!
❤️
❤️ x a million! Thank you so very much to you both for the inspiration for this post, your stories for including in it AND for sending me the book! It'll be on its way back to you soon! 😊
❤️You're so welcome, Rebecca. Such a great post and tribute to the MBoL.
❤️❤️❤️
A whole book of lists is so delightful. I wish I had kept my own adolescent book of lists - I loved to make lists then, in the very best sparkly gel pen ink - I would send it to you if I had it!
Sparkly green lists sound AWESOME, Alison! How great that you had a book of lists as a teenager - I bet it was full of all those really important things. It is a long regret of mine that I had never kept a diary, actually - and today I love looking through my six years of bullet journals (they're a source of ongoing reference for me, thanks to the index) and seeing what was happening and when - and how I felt about whatever-it-was at the time! 😊
'while S would stuff a basket with as many volumes of teen fiction as would fit, and would try to convince the librarian that she needed to borrow more than the prescribed four-volume limit² because ‘I am very intelligent and can read very fast.’'
Did this work for S?
Just curious. :).
Naaaaaah, it never worked - although S always tried to borrow more books than the limit! Rules are definitely rules over there.....! 😊
Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Olga! 😘
Oh darn! :).
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is one of our favorites around here! Way too fun seeing adults play it. 😂
This list-keeper seems to live a full and interesting life! Felix is a wonderful name.
Oh, that's so cool, Erika! I'd never heard of it - it was so fun looking it up! 🤣
Hey Rebecca! Long time no comment from me. The weird thing: I fell off of your email list somehow, and I feared you were disconsolate or dead or something even worse, and had quit Substack. Glad to see you're still here! The other thing of note: I owe my career (or, at least its launch) to the original BOL, which I reinterpreted to a ten-page "Resume of Lists." Just as weird as it sounds! Nonetheless it won me several job interviews and my very first journalism job, working for a techno-futurist magazine called NEXT. It died after a couple of years. That's the future for you. Glad to be back here! I missed your wanderings!
Hey Peter - great to hear from you! Gosh, how odd that you hadn't been getting e-mails - it's so kind of you to seek me out again.
I've promised myself a Substack reading catch-up - now that it's spring and work is busier my inbox doesn't hit my radar nearly as often as it should!
Yay for the influence of the original BOL on your career - that's so interesting! 🙌
(See you on your own 'Stack soon - I'm still here, honest!)
The substack algorithm just said, "nah," and cancelled my subscription. I wonder how much of subscriber melt is just substack-admin error?
Grrrrrr! And how intriguing. You've made sense of something, though - I get pretty frequent notifications of new subscribers (thanks, guys!!!) but my total number of subscribers (not that I'm counting) doesn't seem to really shift*. Maybe Substack's employed a doorman from one of those nightclubs on a £1-a-pint student night: one in, one out! 🤣
*It's fine: I'm here to read and write, not count people. It's interesting, though.
I love miniature books and books of lists!!! This post was such fun!!! Thank you!! And it is fun to find things in library books!
Thank you so much for reading, Sue - I loved losing myself in this book of lists! And you're right - it's such fun finding things in books. I've just borrowed a book from my parents to refer to for a forthcoming post - and there are all sorts of things tucked in between its pages - that's not what that post is going to be about, but I'm really going to enjoy looking at all of those artefacts! 😁
Speaking of lists and books - have you seen "Lists Of Note" by Shaun Usher? It's a fun rabbit hole to follow...
Your public library may have access to it and there's this link https://lettersofnote.com/books/lists-of-note/
Oooooh, yes I have - thanks, Sue! In fact I subscribe to both 'Lists of Note' and 'Letters of Note' right here on Substack - they're absolutely delightful - you see, this is why I'm always running out of time to read all of these glorious newsletters out there! 🤣💚😁
Me too - always running out of time to read good stuff!!!
Taco cat goat cheese pizza!! WE LOVE this game. Oh my goodness, this is one of our card games along with Skip-Bo and UNO. This post made me smile and Pepperdine...my bother went there for Grad school. What a beautiful University. Have a great weekend Rebecca with your adventures! I believe The London Marathon is tomorrow. It's on my list. :)
Oh, it's amazing that I'd never heard of Taco cat goat cheese pizza - it seems like lots of other Substackers have! And gosh, what a small world - that your brother went to Pepperdine!
You're right - the London marathon was yesterday - I watched some of the live footage, and IT WAS INCREDIBLE! Can't wait to cheer you on in person when you come over to run it. 😊
Oh my! So much here to take in! I’m always making “lists” on scraps of paper, and they littler my dining table next to my appointment book. A dear friend—now passed—introduced me to a small book years ago she dubbed, “A Capture Device”. When I quizzed her on it, she said it’s a blank book where you jot down lists; thoughts; things to do… etc. I thought that was brilliant and got myself one. Mostly it contained the bills I paid, medicines, groceries, and doctor appointments I attended to for my dad when I cared for him for 7 years. I still have it.
That little stylized elephant on the back of the booklet, looked like a stylized turtle to me going in the opposite direction. Funny what one perceives at first glance. 🤔😉
Ooooh Gail, 'A Capture Device' - that's such a great way to look at it! I love how it sounds like a tool or a gadget - for that's exactly what a notebook is, isn't it?!
My life changed when I started using a notebook for lists - and indeed other things. Lists would be on loose pieces of paper or old envelopes or corners of napkins, and I had no way of organising anything that was on them. One list might have:
Buy cheese
Ring Mum
Save the world
Weed front path
Get new job
....and those things would be so incomprehensibly unrelated - and of such different scales - that I would never know where or how to start!
A turtle? Gosh yes, I see it, too! That's really interesting. 🤔
Love this!
You're so kind, Jillian - thank you!
I think you need to make and sell these little books, Rebecca! I’d love one.
Awwww, that's such a gorgeous idea, Amie! 😘
Wow! What a post! If I had found the MBoL, I would have instantly thought, "Rebecca!" and sent it to you. What a detective's mind you have. I loved everything here.
Awwwww, thanks, Sharron!!!
Of course I loved this! You have a wonderful way of turning something possibly ordinary into a full-blown, multi-chapter adventure story! And the mention of the American vs UK vocabulary choices had me smiling with recognition. I always chuckle remembering each time I learned that anything that had the prefix "English" on it as I had learned in America, it is usually just the plain word here: like Cucumber, or the band the Beat. But why not "English muffins"? Perhaps you can suss that one out sometime! 🤣🤣
LOL - thank you so much, Sabrina! It's funny - well, an English muffin is what I call a muffin, and that US baked good in a paper case that's kind of overflowingly crispy at the top and reminds me of the disaster zone around my trouser waistband is an American muffin! 🤣
Ah ha! Thanks for the explanation! So It is consistent then to call it just a muffin. and very much NOT the overly sweet deliciousness you call an American muffin. I like the symmetry there, if not the caloric value of an American muffin. Although an English muffin is nuthin' if not toasted and slathered in melting butter....🤣!
I do hope Emma came into the Austin Library to reclaim her book of lists; that is, unless she's filled it and started another one. Thank's for this tour through multiple lives in the UK and Austin. I love Austin.
Thanks so much for reading, Sue! Austin sounds terrific - I've loved learning about it from Mary B's posts. Last week I learned that her local supermarket holds 'tasting strolls' - I NEED to participate in one of those!
Very inter, Rebecca and, as ever, meticulously researched.
Thanks so much, Terry! Loved writing and researching this one - and Mary B's been AWESOME. 🤩
Just catching up on my stacks this morning, Rebecca. Like you, I’m so behind! The MBoL cover reminds me of my good friend (she’s Thai) who owns a mini-cooper! Apparently, it’s a popular car there. Before I moved my shopping list digitally, the notebook reminded me of my analog days. As always, a lovely and delightful read!
Oh, how lovely, Stella - what a great connection you have to this tiny book and where it came from!
All power to you for the digital shopping list. I have a list on my kitchen clipboard, but I do all of my grocery shopping online (unless I run out of something like milk or eggs, in which case I'll run to the Village Stores that's just two minutes away), so I guess I'm only half analogue myself!
Before my grocery delivery service changed my life for the better I had an A5 spiral-bound hardback notebook in the kitchen - on the left-hand page I'd write the things I needed to get, just in random order, as I thought of them during the week, and then on the day I was going shopping I would sit down with a cup of tea and rewrite my shopping list on the blank right-hand page with the items listed in the order in which I would encounter them at the supermarket. I'd take the whole book with me, and found this kind of curated list faaaaaar easier to shop with than a list that's just in random order, and that way I could minimise the time I spent shopping.
Yes! Thats how my analog shopping list is organized— according to the aisle or section making it an efficient shopping experience! And lessens the chances of forgetting something and going back at a later time to get it. This method has saved us! Our digital shopping list is organized the same way! 😀