In Austin, I visited the Harry Ransom Center, the magnificent research library and museum at the University of Texas. The collection boasts many firsts—the first book printed in English (William Caxton’s 1474 edition of Lefevre’s Historyes of Troye); the first photograph (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s
View from the Window at Le Gras,
ca.1826); and the first major book illustrated with photographs (The Pencil of Nature, 1844-46, by William Henry Fox Talbot).

Best, though, was seeing the Center’s Book Conservation Lab. It’s essentially a book hospital, where damaged volumes are tenderly brought back to life.  A conservator held up a small plastic bag filled with what looked like wood shavings.  They were the remains of an old book cover that had been repaired.  When I asked what she’d do with them, she said, Oh, we’ll keep them. You never know!  It made me happy—as a writer and a reader—to know that there’s a place, many places, where books and even scraps of books are still considered precious.

These days, as every author knows, publishers are scrambling like chickens without their heads, clucking, The book is dead! The book is dead! But just as opera didn’t die with the advent of movies, and movies weren’t killed off by television, books aren’t dead, they just have to share shelf space with other forms of entertainment. Even though the traditional form of the book may be changing, our innate human need for stories will never die.

Back home, inspired, I saw my writing studio with new eyes.  My bookcases were full to bursting and the floor was covered with precariously tall stacks of books that grew like literary stalagmites. Did I really need all of them?  Sure, as a nonfictionist, I could justify the thousands of titles but, increasingly, I’ve been writing about those bigger, intangible truths that can’t be footnoted but are nonetheless true. I was ready to clear the literal and metaphoric decks and welcome something new, like this blog, into my life.

They say, If you want your life to change, move 27 things.  I moved 27 things—and dozens more. It was an unexpected occasion of grace to sort through my books, releasing those that were no longer needed and acknowledging the authors who had been so helpful to me.  I boxed up about 300 books for Amazon’s new EasySell program, which takes the hassle out of packing and mailing books individually.  But the best part was setting up a book-giveaway table outside my house. Over the course of several weekends, I gave away hundreds of books to neighbors and strangers alike. Sending them into the world so that they could continue to bring pleasure and new insights to others filled me with utter joy.

The book is dead?  Not a chance!

This article first appeared on Intent.com.  Follow my blog on Intent.com!

Inspirational speaker Nicole Johnson uses my book, Churches, to deliver a powerful message of hope for everyone who feels invisible and taken for granted. I don’t know Nicole, but what she took away from Churches and how she brought the lessons of the Gothic cathedral builders to bear on today’s problems, blew me away. Watch, and be inspired! For more on Nicole, visit Fresh Brewed Life, hope for the daily grind.

Building a bridge is a monumental undertaking, and there is something inherent in projects of this size and scope that makes people want to participate in their creation. In the case of the sleek, new I-35W crossing over the Mississippi that opened in Minneapolis this week, Twin City residents engaged in a day-long discussion that determined aspects of the bridge’s design, eighteen hundred schoolchildren made mosaic tiles that adorn the bridge, and thousands watched in wonder as this heroic ten-lane highway bridge rose, incredibly, in eleven short months. To celebrate the bridge and spirit of collaboration, FIGG, the bridge’s designer and engineer of record, has published Bridging the Mississippi: The New I-35W Bridge.  Rich with color photos, plans, and graphics, the book provides a step-by-step overview for the general reader of the bridge’s design, planning, and construction. All book proceeds will be donated to two Minneapolis organizations that further the cause of education.  For more information, and to order the book ($20 plus shipping), visit FIGG.

One thrill of the writing life is receiving pictures of one’s “babies” taken in faraway places. Bill Pinkney, the visionary behind the recreation of the Amistad schooner as a floating, living memorial to civil rights, presented a copy of Monuments, which tells Amistad’s story, to Josephine Kargbo of the Monuments and Relics Commission of Sierra Leone during the Amistad’s 2007-2008 Atlantic Freedom Tour. This historic 18-month journey retraced the slave trade route to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom in 2007, and in the United States in 2008. The Amistad’s arrival in Sierra Leone—the West African homeland of many of the Amistad captives—was a symbolic “homecoming” and the capstone event of the Atlantic Freedom Tour. Amistad’s epic voyage concluded on June 21, 2008 when she returned to New Haven to fanfare and rejoicing.