Tom Robbins Tiny Library
If we are lucky books change our lives. We stand on the shoulders of those who have parsed out sensibilities and understandings that inspire us and make our lives more enjoyable, easier to understand, more productive and generally happier. There are many authors who have contributed to the tapestry but one stands out among others: Mr. Tom Robbins. Mr. Robbins is now 90 years old and we were able to meet him in Blowing Rock, NC several years ago.
It is hard to say what makes an author’s unique voice work, but his inspiration led to Farrah doing a birthday painting for me many years ago. We mailed this painting to him back in 2019 with a letter expressing our thanks for his courage and life’s work and we received a response (framed letter below). At the time we originally wrote to him we had just purchased the farm and named it Rare Bird and we let him know.
In early spring 2023 we mailed him another care package giving him an update and providing some photos of the newly christened Tom Robbins Tiny Library. Below are the photos we sent including some of the shelves featuring his books and the surrounding shelves. We have a lot of work to do. The curation and ongoing availability of the library will be a lifelong project. We have divided the books into those related to Appalachian mountain and agricultural topics, literature, arts & poetry, spiritual, old crafts and guidebooks and other texts supporting our Rare Bird mission. We also have a couple of shelves dedicated to publishing projects that we have been personally involved with or produced over the past twenty years through various entities (Organic Process, greatunpublished.com, BookSurge, Creative Media) and other books we helped produce for friends and family.
This page is a start on beginning to document and sophisticate the way we share the library with the world, so take a quick tour below.
Our most recent care package letter, including a photo we took with Mr. Robbins when we met him in Blowing Rock several years ago.
Not all of our Tom Robbins books are here, but most. We are constantly on the hunt for new and unique editions and will be adding multiple languages here soon.
Wide shot of the Tom Robbins shelf with a Richard Brautigan sticker on an old chair
Our lifelong friend and Rare Bird partner Benjamin Gibbins made us this frame of a letter from Mr. Robbins for our 20th wedding anniversary in 2021.
Richard Brautigan, Terrence McKenna, Allan Watts, Buckminster Fuller, Erich Fromm and two recent additions Richard Power’s Overstory (an incredible love song to trees) and Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World.
The Tom Robbins library sits inside the building in the background here (in front of the blue bus)
A wide shot of the current library, which is growing.
Vonnegut, Huxley and Marshall McLuhan have had an almost equal impact and are highlights of the library
Photo Kudra the goat, namesake of the heroine from Jitterbug Perfume