Wonder Pens Book Club

We are hosting a book club! The Wonder Pens Book Club. I’m so excited for this. Celina and Mai are taking the helm of this initiative, and I’m so thrilled to be in the back seat, along for the ride.

Celina designed this cute book mark for anyone who either buys the book from us or attends the club. And there’s also a stamp! If you buy the book from us, our staff can stamp this into the inside of your book. I love the idea of a little, growing collection of books from a book club or other journey of reading you’re on, all together on a shelf.

But of course read it in any form: library, audio, e-book, used. Heaven forfend I leave out Amazon, but here we are, in this world, all of us doing the best we can. I shall not cast any stones for my aim is terrible and I’m likely to hurt myself.

And come out for an evening where we discuss Piranesi, this month’s pick, and maybe just books in general, and what we are reading, and how we are feeling about books these days. We will have snacks, we will be in our cosy little stationery shop, and we will enjoy the company and thoughts of other people who read books.

And even if you can’t make it, live too far, enjoy an introvert lifestyle, do not like the look of this month’s book, I hope you are still reading and mustering through difficult passages and flying through magical stories and considering new ideas, coming home from the library with your arms full and your brain cogs turning, filling up your cosy evenings with adventures of all sorts.

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Once again, my existential crisis churns and simmers, and I wonder how to best exist as a human, as a shop clerk, as someone who loves all of these tactile, stationery things, and as someone who wonders about what to do with our one wild and precious life. I often think about how reading and writing go together, and how as a shop, we are so lucky to have a bit of both.

I love all the things we carry in the shop! It is my cross to bear, and I bear it gladly for you all. We carry a lot of fountain pens and writing tools, and we also have a few shelves of favourite and new books. Some of these books are from rabbit holes I’ve gotten lost in, other titles are from other people’s journeys. And maybe books are the answer to my existential/mid-life crisis. One might find some secret or mystery tucked away in there that changes the trajectory of life. Or maybe not, and maybe I just get to dig into a good story. Maybe one that involves a loyal dog companion that at the end does not die. Or do the loyal dogs in fact have to die in order for the meaning of life to become clear? Another puzzle for another book.

On this earth, on this path, in this very moment, sometimes it’s these books and notebooks, paper and pencils and pens, these are the things that walk with us no matter how bright or dark.