nurturing the spirit

About me

I’m Christopher Sell. I teach meditation and spiritual growth classes.

Books I read as a child had a profound influence on me. They liberated my imagination and helped me sustain a belief that the world was not only its outward appearance.

It seems to me that some authors, consciously or not, are seed sowers and fire bearers. I wanted to create this site to share some of the joy such books brought me and continue to bring me, partly out of gratitude, partly because it’s fun.

Some of the books I write about here are well over a hundred years old, some published only recently.

About Bookshop.org

Do you love bookshops? I do. 

Bookshop.org has come into being to help independent bookshops in the UK and USA to thrive.

If you follow the link with any review to Bookshop.org and make a purchase, independent bookshops benefit financially and I also receive a commission.
 

If you like to know more, here’s how they describe what they do:

Bookshop.org is an online bookshop with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops.
 
We believe that bookshops are essential to a healthy culture. They are where authors can connect with readers, where we discover new writers, where children get hooked on the thrill of reading that can last a lifetime. They are also anchors for our high streets and communities — owned, staffed, run and full of real people who have a genuine love of books and reading.
 
As more and more people buy their books online, we wanted to create an easy, convenient way for you to get your books and support independent bookshops at the same time. If you want to choose a specific bookshop to support, choose them from our map and they’ll receive 30% of the cover price (or almost all of the profit) on your orders for a year. Otherwise, 10% of the cover price of your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among participating independent bookshops each month. Either way, your order is sent straight to your address, and all in-stock items arrive in 2-3 days.
 
We also support anyone who advocates for books through our affiliate programme, which pays a 10% commission on every sale, and gives a matching 10% to independent bookshops. If you are an author, a website or magazine, a bookclub, an organisation that wants to recommend books, or even just a book-lover with an Instagram feed, you can sign up to be an affiliate, start your own shop, and be rewarded for your book recommendations.
 
By design, we give away the vast majority of our profit to bookshops, publications, authors and the many others who make up the thriving, inspirational culture around books and reading.

Thoughts

What are children’s books for?

Children’s books are quite new. They start appearing round about 250 years ago. Before that chapbooks and broadside ballads formed ephemeral nourishment for the reading public, and while many of them certainly appealed to children and were read by them, few were specifically aimed at children. And all the while oral storytelling continued, of course.

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