The Book Meme

Greetings dear blog readers. I have been tagged by Kathy to participate in this interesting book meme.

Here are the instructions:
1. Take the nearest book and go to page 123.
2. Go to the fifth sentence of the page.
3. Copy down the next three sentences and tag three people.

One of the things I will be forever grateful for is the gift my parents inadvertently gave me in the love of reading. As a child my dad would send us off to bed at much too early a bedtime (8:00 pm!). With nothing else to do I would read. My two brothers closest in age to me also got the gift and are still avid readers.

Consequently we DO have a lot of books in our house. They belong mainly to the girls and I. Therefore, you would logically think that finding a book to pick would be easy. One would surely be within arms reach. With my computer in my studio, the choices tend to be technical. The closest book is How to be a Successful Lettering Artist. An art that will surely be soon lost along with dark rooms, film cameras and manual drafting, but that is a post for another day.

Not happy with page 123 in the lettering book (references) I went into the living room to pick a book and randomly reached out and grasped Lincoln the Unknown by Dale Carnegie. It is a book Jack won years back when he was attending a Dale Carnegie class in public speaking. Jack, the non-reader, the man who has read ONE book in the 19 years I have known him. In addition it’s a book that he read before he met me and wanted to keep. Here is the excerpt:

“In that guise, he crossed the waiting-room and made his way to the rear section of the last sleeping-car on the train, which one of Pinkerton’s aides, a woman, had had cut off from the rest of the car by a heavy curtain and reserved for her “invalid brother.”

Lincoln had received scores of threatening letters, declaring that he would never live to enter the White House, and General Winfield Scott, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, feared that Lincoln would be shot during the inaugural address---and so did thousands of others.

Many people in Washington were afraid to attend the ceremony.”

If you like history this is a quick and interesting read. Jack highly recommends it! I’m not sure it is still in circulation, but if you take a Dale Carnegie class, something I recommend to all who dislike speaking in public, you might win one, in addition to becoming fearless in front of a crowd.

With the holidays upon us I open tagging to whoever hasn't done the meme or whoever has the time. Just leave a comment with a link to your blog post!