People have lots of opportunities to engage in activities that "pass the time." However, is leisure a way to refresh oneself for more work or is it something important for its own sake?  Josef Pieper, in his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture, argues that leisure is the celebration of the very highest things and that no culture can exist without it. We will be left with only meaningless toil vainly repeated. Leisure understood as simply passing the time in order to refresh oneself for more work is not truly leisure at all. Leisure is not an escape from the world of mundane tasks but rather its redemption.

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J. R. R. Tolkien, in his depiction of Hobbits, shows us what a life ordered around cultivating leisure can look like. Hobbits love domestic arts like gardening and cooking. They love good conversation and good ale. Hobbits certainly work, but their work finds its fulfillment in the creation of beautiful things which are shared. Hobbits truly enjoy the fruit of their labor, because that is actually the point of their labor.

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We were inspired to name ourselves Brandy Hall Bookshoppe after the family home of Merry Brandybuck, He grew up in Brandy Hall and after returning home from his adventures, he created a library there. That library held Frodo's account of their adventures as well as many other volumes including Merry's own research on the origins of pipe smoking in the Shire.

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We saw this as an image of what we are trying to do as well. We want to bring books which cultivate our love of higher things and our sense of wonder. In so doing, we hope to bring to mundane work a sense of meaning and fulfillment which only comes from the pursuit of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. This is the reason for our dual emphasis on Classical literary works and things like cookbooks. 

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We used to participate in a poetry club where people from all backgrounds, political persuasions, and perspectives would come together of an evening. We would circle around a table under the broad thick leaves of a vast orange tree, with blossoms imbuing the cool night air with faint sweetness. Each person brought a poem to share. As we would discuss each others poems, mining them for gold, admiring their beauty, we would find that we were being bonded to one another. In the celebration of something higher than ourselves, we all came to know one another and also be known. 

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