About this book

Commonplace books have been kept for thousands of years, usually as a kind of scrapbook where their creators jotted down messages of interest to them, ranging from sayings, writings, quotations, recipes, mathematical formulae, letters, poems, proverbs, or prayers. The commonplace book derives its name from the Latin term locus communis which means “a general or common topic.”  Commonplace books often functioned in ways similar to a diary, and were most often used to help readers remember things their creators thought worth preserving. For women, who were often excluded from formal higher education, the commonplace book could be a repository of intellectual references kept for an entire lifetime; the English-Australian artist Georgina McCrae kept a commonplace book from 1828-1865, for example.

This commonplace book collects hundreds of quotations, poems, or passages of scripture that struck me as memorable for one reason or another. Some are humorous, some are quirky, some are profound, some are contradictory, but all have been chosen with care. You will notice also that certain passages have been chosen because of their significance to the day itself: anniversaries, important birthdays, holidays, etc.

I hope that you enjoy this gift, Russel, and find things worth pondering, remembering, and preserving within it through the coming year.

With love —

Steel