My kind of book

 I recently read Gunilla Norris’s Companions on the Way: A Little Book of Heart-full Practices. Several recent notes have been about the idea of practices. (If you’re interested, start with “Practices,” Aug. 30, 2025.)

But I also was interested in the form of the book. It’s just 45 pages. I’d guess it’s 6,000 words, with another 1,000 in introductions and notes to readers. Norris tried to get at the idea of what a practice is by suggesting 23. One — she calls it “the morning lope” — is one I know well. I make it a practice to walk through the woods to get in touch with the place that has somehow become my place. An earlier version of me walked along Zarzamora Creek.

I’m sure there are tomes that collect all there is to know about practices. But this brief book was what I was looking for.

Years ago, I was trying to understand what a ritual is — what we humans are trying to get at with ritual behavior and why we behave in that peculiar way. I consulted a massive book and learned a lot of facts about the long story of rituals without getting much closer to my original questions.

Norris’s book was published by Homebound Publications. One of its authors, Edward Anderson, said his Falling Up: A Memoir of Second Chances came in at 84 pages and about 10,000 words. The press was founded by Leslie M. Browning and seems to have several interests. One is LGBT literature. Another is “contemplative storytelling,” and I’d guess Norris’s book fits that category. Another is that a long essay works as a short book that fits into a pocket.

• Source: Gunilla Norris, Companions on the Way: A Little Book of Heart-full Practices; Pawcatuck, Conn.: Homebound Publications, 2017.