"All the Beauty Still Left," selected by Spencer Reece

On the back cover of Spencer Reece's new book is a line from Anne Frank: "Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy."

His small, elegant book — a collection of quotes, illustrated with his own watercolors — is certainly a part of that beauty.

"These images flow from my praying and meditating," Reece writes in the introduction to his modern-day Book of Hours.

Reece, an Episcopal priest and poet who grew up in Minnesota, has selected brief quotes from a varied group of people — Louise Gluck, Yo-Yo Ma, Gertrude Stein, Jericho Brown, Louis Armstrong — to take us through a day. "You speak the path on which you walk. Your words make the trail," writes Minnesota poet Diane Glancy.

Reece's paintings are charming — landscapes and cityscapes, a few dogs, a self-portrait or two. They "flow from my praying and meditating," he writes in the introduction. "They marry my brain to my heart."

Just 4 inches by 6 inches, this is a book to slip into a pocket or a purse and carry throughout the day. And be happy.

LAURIE HERTZEL

Quarantine Reads are recommendations of soothing books in fraught times. Send your suggestions, with your name and city, to books@startribune.com.