Little Books - Big Thoughts

Two bed time reading books of mine are Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White; and Haiku - An Anthology of Japanese Poems edited by Stephen Addiss, Fumiko Yamamoto, and Akira Yamamoto.

Both books fit in your pocket, but fill your mind with volumes of thoughts. Both are meant to be sipped slowly at night, like a hot cup of coffee on a cold winter morning. I became aware of Elements of Style when my youngest son bought a copy while in high school. He was a far better writer than me at that age, so I bought my own copy a few months ago. The haiku anthology is the fourth of its kind that I have bought. It started with a book of general styles of poetry that introduced me to this form of Japanese poetry, followed by a writer's handbook of haiku, that was then followed by stylistic volume of haiku poems printed on a continuous strip of paper that was was then folded and bound into a book. My boss, hearing that I was reading haiku, brought a copy of the book he had received as a gift and loaned it to me - I ordered my own the next day. Both of these little books are interesting in themselves, and when considered together, cause me to think about what I read, and how I write. Elements is especially addictive because it gives me a template for assessing grammar - notice the proper placement of commas in the string of editors' names of Haiku? With both, minimalism is beautiful.
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Both books also document literature lineages. The summary of Japanese haiku authors in The Poets section at back of the book shows the influences that older writers had on younger ones. As for Elements of Style, its authors' and the book's influence on others is remarkable as noted by foreword and afterword by Roger Angell and Charles Osgood, respectively; and the list of endorsements in the Fifty Years of Acclaim for EOS section in the front of the book.