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Today’s recommendation is a book about one of the eternal loves of my life: snail mail. I never really stopped being a pen pal since childhood. Back in the early ’90s, we used to get pamphlets at school where one could pick some countries, send in a dollar per country, and get the name and address of someone their age in that country who wanted an American pen pal. Getting mail from Ireland and Japan and New Zealand and the Philippines when I was in fifth grade was amazing and even now, I delight in every piece of mail that arrives that is not a bill (or junk). If you think any of this sounds even a little bit interesting, read on.
Syme’s Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence About (Almost) Every Imaginable Subject of Daily Life, with Odes to Desktop Ephemera and Selected Letters of Famous Writers by Rachel Syme
This book is an updated take on a smaller book from 1867 called Frost’s Original Letter Writer, a guide to everything about and for written correspondence. Syme’s Letter Writer is both for people who want to start sending snail mail and don’t know how and also for seasoned pen pals who may want to learn a few new tricks. This book isn’t a bunch of stodgy letter-writing etiquette—it’s actually the opposite of that. The author does go over the basics, like how to be a pen pal and how to write your first letter, and I found it to be an accessible introduction to a hobby that could come off as a bit intimidating.
Throughout the book, the author does something that I deeply appreciate: she offers ideas for what to write in a letter or on a postcard or whatever you happen to be sending. For folks who don’t have an established letter-writing relationship with the person they’re writing to, it can be really hard to think of what to even write. It can also feel like a lot of pressure, and this book does a lot to relieve that pressure and increase the fun.
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The author also makes a ton of recommendations of who to write letters to, whether they be fan mail, or to a friend or family member, or even to yourself. There are some great recommendations of letter-writing projects that a person could get involved with, from writing to kids in hospitals to incarcerated folks to elders.
There is just so much good stuff in here, like how to send a recipe, how to write about the weather, and ideas for small, flat things to send through the mail that don’t take a lot of extra postage. It has a helpful section on how postage works, especially the important non-machinable item stamps. There are also some basics on flower-pressing and the important response to: Should I spritz my letter with perfume?
Throughout the book, Syme includes examples of letters and sign-offs from famous authors. The resources in this book are incredibly helpful, and the artwork and layouts are so great with lots of vintage artwork that gives a sort of scrapbook and zine energy.
