Category: Notes
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The House
In the latest issue of Sirene Magazine (that you can borrow from the Sea Library), there’s a feature about a surfing photographer. In the introductory article you can read: “Ezequiel Rivero first visited Costa Rica’s Santa Teresa Beach in 2008, in a small house 50 steps from the ocean. No more easy access to Wi-Fi,…
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Happy Birthday, Sea Library
Good morning, friends. It’s Sea Library’s birthday today. Although it’s not easy to draw a line in time saying this is where you started, it was June 4, six years ago when I publicly announced, come, borrow, these books are yours, too. My doors are open. Those who follow this weird and beautiful library, will…
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Letter from January
Dear friend, The first month of this new year has passed on a pretty cool wave. I felt recharged after four month pause from social media and returned to Instagram and X accounts. I even recorded a few video reels to invite you inside the Sea Library and meet Nemo, my beautiful dog. On the…
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Letter from December
I imagined a calm month ahead of me. The end of the year usually inspires us to slow down, look back and reflect. In a way it was like that and even more.
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What is your sea of interest?
I would like to become even more useful and to find out more about the community of readers gathering around this lighthouse of books.
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Letter from November
Dear friend, November has its tail in bright autumn leaves and nose buried in pure white snow. It’s bones are bare branches, and body – made out of fog, dusk and grey clouds. It’s a month of souls in Latvian culture similar to other places in the world. Starting with All Saint’s Day, when the…
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Letter from October
After a summer-like September, October arrived with storms, floods, rain, hail, and colorful leaves of birch and maple trees.
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Letter from September
Astronomical Autumn has started. Last days of September are tumbling down the calendar. I have two oily brown conkers in the pocket of my rain coat.
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Happy World Water Day
I believe in sea gods and sea people. I am under a strong spell of the Sea Library – this wildly beautiful beast. I’m filling its belly with books. I love sea-infected writers and sea-addicted readers. I need the sea as if my life would depend on it.
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Postcard from the Sea Library: Blue Dog
“Eyes of a blue dog. I’ve written it everywhere.”Gabriel García Márquez Dear friend, Was it art or sea that I saw first when I was born, I wonder? Probably the first one was art. Sea has always been there too, and yet I started to notice it only years later. I grew up immersed in…
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Ten Quotes About Christmas from the Sea Library Books
“The smaller you are, the bigger Christmas is.” Tove Jansson “Christmas” from “Sculptor’s Daughter” “For the last seventeen years I’ve been returning to this city, or recurring in it, with the frequency of a bad dream. .. every Christmas or shortly before I’d emerge from a train/plane/boat/bus and drag my bags heavy with books and…
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Getting Ready for 2023
Today I bought a new notebook. I am ready to anchor words on its pristine pages to set all my dreams to sail.
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Book of essays and art, RADICAL FAUNA, is out today
From today the “Radical Fauna” is available as a free e-book. Please, download, read, and share with young minds and rebellious souls to change the world back to beautiful.
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Looking Back at Summer 2022
A few days ago, on August 26, I celebrated my 38th birthday. I was 30 and pregnant with our second son when I decided to quit my previous path and look for another one, my own. These eight years have been as wondrous as I could ever imagine. I was afraid back then. To start…
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Let’s Play a Game: SEA-LIBRARY.COM
Yes, I know, I already told you that Sea Library books are listed now on a wonderful library app. It is very useful to browse through my shelves and choose what to borrow. But I also mentioned that it is a nearly perfect catalogue, because I have worked for a very long time on a…
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With a Bus and a Train to the Island of the Day Before
I’m reading now mostly on wheels. My copy of “The Island of the Day Before” by Umberto Eco is filled with train and bus tickets. It’s a story about a 17th-century nobleman Roberto della Griva who is the sole survivor of a terrible storm. He finds himself stranded on an abandoned ship anchored not far…
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The Sea Library Catalogue
Dear readers and sea lovers, I finally have a nearly perfect catalogue to share with you. There are 652 books in the Sea Library right now and more than 500 are in the catalogue. (I will figure out how to add the more than 100 old and ISBN-less titles). Browse the books and choose what…
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After 8 years I have found a day job I love
I love to joke that one day the sea invented a job for me. On the fluid line between imagination and reality, I became a sea librarian. Just like in childhood when you daydream about fantastic professions. I imagined becoming a keeper of stories about the sea. As wondrous and impossible as it could seem,…
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Become a Pirate Patron of the Sea Library
I have dedicated years to this dream for a sea-loving community to have a place of books where everything is for free – no matter how far you live. I wouldn’t be able to without the help of my family. Now you as well can become a Pirate Patron. Huge thanks to the first Patrons…
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Sea Library: Coast as Muse
I was honored and happy to be invited to participate in Coastal Connections’ seminar Coast as Muse on February 3. The wonderful seminar series is organized by the University of Portsmouth. The Zoom event was recorded and here it is available on Youtube, but here is also my presentation as an essay. I am Anna…
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Happy New Year!
2021 has been a wondrous year for the Sea Library which is just 3 years old. I have bought and received many new books and other gifts. Thanks to selling woven bookmarks (on Christmas Sale till Sunday!) I have bought 100 new books for kids. Sea Library was featured on BBC4 Open Book. I have…
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Online Shop Up Now
I have wonderful news and a gift for the Kids Sea Library this Christmas: I have created a lovely online shop for my woven bookmarks and limited edition postcards. I have been weaving and selling them for more than a year now. I think, they deserved a beautiful place to reach more book lovers and…
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Sea Library Postcards for Readers and Dreamers
With Christmas just around the corner, the Sea Library has new postcards, drawn by the amazing artist Katrīna Ģelze. I love this illustration so much. It perfectly captures the soul of the Sea Library, the magic of books. There are only 100 postcards, one for 5€. A wonderful way how to support the library. Thank…
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Sailor’s Bookmarks for Christmas?
Last week I finished an order of ten bookmarks for a lovely little shop in the Azores, Portugal. While I am weaving a few more for fans of the Sea Library and sea, I wanted to write a note. If you want to give someone a Sailor’s bookmark this Christmas, please, send me a message…
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Postcard from the Sea Library: Beachcombing
Dear friend, I want to tell you about one find. It was an overcast February morning. I threw my bike in the sand and took a walk along the calm silver sea. Closer to dunes I noticed a white tip of a feather sticking out of the ground. It looked like any ordinary tip of…
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Postcard from the Sea Library: Sailing to Ithaca
Dear friend, What’s your journey home? This week I was thinking about mine. Greek hero Odysseus sailed to his homeland Ithaca for ten years. On his way home he had to overcome many difficulties including sailing through Scylla and Charybdis, man-eating and ship-eating sea monsters: one in a cave on a cliff and the other…
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Postcard from the Sea Library: Flowers and the Sea
Dear friend, What do you think about when you hear a phrase “flowers and the sea”? First of all, I see a rosa rugosa. A wooden path that takes me to the sea goes past a small seaside cemetery and then through a wild garden of willows, small pines, reeds and bushes of wild roses.…
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Listen to the Sea Library on Sound Waves of BBC Radio 4
Any plans for this Sunday? My beloved Sea Library will be featured on “Open Book” @ BBC Radio 4. Tune in on Sunday, August 22, 16.00 (BST). It will be available in the archives afterwards.
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How Can You Support the Sea Library?
Stars shine upon the good deeds as in the last few weeks lots of people have asked me if there are any ways how to support the Sea Library.
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Shop: Sea Library’s Bookmarks and Postcards
Sea Library is a dream world I have created in our old wooden house, standing for a century on a dune peninsula between river and sea. For three years the doors of the library are wide open for books about seas and curious readers to come and go. To support what I do, I weave.…
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Happy Birthday, Sea Library !
No need for birthday gifts. Sea Library is the best gift I could ever wish for. Happy birthday!
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News: I am Writing a Book About my Road to the Sea Library
I am happy to announce that brilliant Robert Caskie is my agent and that I am writing a book about my road to the Sea Library. I can’t believe to see my name among writers I admire! It’s time to set sail…
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Postcard from the Sea Library: Reindeer Antlers and Baltic Ancestors
“When I waded out in the lake on the evening of my birthday I tried to imagine my ancestors living by this same lake thousands of years ago.”
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New Section: Sea Library in Press
Visit the new section to read articles and interviews about the Sea Library in press!
Sea Library Magazine 