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on faeries, butter, basil leaves & twine
“The faerie’s creamery was not too deep, happily, or at least it did not feel so; a chimneylike skylight cut into the stone roof admitted the warm gold-green light of the forest. Given the faerie’s size, the workspace was expansive— even Wendell, the tallest among us, did not need to duck— with a hard-packed earthen floor and an array of shelves, some of which held blocks of butter wrapped in paper and twine. In the middle of the workshop was the butter churn, beside which was a tin bucket of milk with condensation forming on the side— which I think is what the faerie had been worrying about, for she immediately rushed over to it and carried it into her cellar. The air was cool, on the edge of cold, and the smell of the place made my mouth water. Not only of butter, but thyme and lavender, strawberries and honey, which the faerie used to flavor some of the blocks. Those on the nearest shelf had leaves tucked beneath the twine— basil, I think.”
Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost TalesIf you love the idea of immersing yourself in a world where fairy lore feels wonderfully real, dangerous, and atmospheric, you need to step into Heather Fawcett’s series titled Emily Wilde.
Meet Emily: a brilliant, wonderfully awkward Cambridge professor – a ‘dryadologist’ who happens to be writing the world’s first encyclopedia of faeries. Emily, the professor and expert on dryads, is fantastic with books and learning—but absolutely terrible with people. When her field research takes her into a snow-laden, isolated northern village, and her insufferably charming academic rival crashes the expedition, she gets pulled into a web of ancient secrets, dark magic, and unexpected romance.
This is one on a list of ‘ultimate snuggle under a blanket’ light academia fantasy reads. Heather Fawcett, the author of the Emily Wilde series, also wrote the New York Times bestseller Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter. The Emily Wilde series has been nominated for the Hugo Award.
Ready to lose yourself in the series?
Tap on the book widgets—you don’t need the wand—and grab the trilogy. You will gain an amazing reading experience, Marginalia & Co. Bookshop will be thrilled, and you will be helping bookshop.org support independent bookstores. Three in one, no wands, no glitter—and a great reading experience.
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Culture Yoga.
Culture is not just books and paintings.
Culture is one of the means through which we express the human experience and human nature.
And yoga? We will borrow its stretching, breathing, and focusing—but use it to stretch the mind, enhance our visualization, and nurture our imagination.
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s CourtCulture Yoga.
- Read each of those random sensory phrases I created—listed below.
- Close your eyes. Focus on each one. Picture it in your mind.
- Notice the textures, the scents, the sights, and the sounds.
- Move on to the next sensory phrase.
- Repeat this as many times as you like—feel as if you are letting go and immersing yourself in the setting you are imagining.
- a brick of dark chocolate
- a gondolier at the stern rowing in the middle of a dark and quiet 15th-century Venetian night
- a heron on a large rock along the shore on a cloudy day
- one of the chairs alongside a long medieval banquet table, about to be set
- the imprint in the sands left behind by a caravan of camels passing through the desert
- the sound of cars passing along the large puddles of freshly poured rain on the street
- cinnamon
Culture Yoga – Your imagination will thank you.
sosanni
