I have a lot of
books.
This isn’t unusual;
English majors love books, teachers love books, and writers love books, and I
have been all three. Sometimes I
am surprised at how many books I have, but more often I am surprised that I
don’t have more.
Despite the fact that I
don’t own an e-reader of any kind (and still don’t have one on my Christmas
list, either) my home is not, in fact, furnished with
books—the volumes are mostly
confined to shelves and neat stacks here and there. What has kept my collection at bay is
the fact that I do, sometimes, get rid of books. I sell them, I donate them, I give them away. But there are many that I keep and, for
some, I have only just discovered the reason.
With some titles, it’s
obvious. I keep my soft,
written-all-over, well-worn teacher’s copy of The Outsiders because it’s like an old friend. I have read that book more than forty
times and have large passages memorized.
And I keep the other nine copies because they all have different
covers. (I’m a collector of this
particular book and love the oldest editions with the green-edged pages.) I keep some books because I haven’t read
them yet and others because I want to someday re-read them. I keep books because I use them as
references or because I loved them or simply because of how pretty they look on
my shelves. (I admit this is true
for the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage—thick, well-shaped books with
beautiful covers.) Some books I
keep simply because I have written in them, and giving them away would be like
handing over a journal.
Then there are other
volumes that sit on my shelves year after year, whose worth is less evident to
the observer, books that I liked but didn’t love, books that I never intend to
re-read and haven’t opened since I finished them. But over and over again, when I am trailing my fingers along
my shelves looking to make space for new friends, I skip over them, refuse to
consider their departure.
I’ve only recently been
able to articulate why.
Some of my books hold
memories. I don’t need to open
them, I don’t even need to pick them up to remember a passage of text or a
moment of my life. Just seeing the
spine on my shelf brings it all back.
But I need that spine. I am
convinced that if it were gone, I wouldn’t be able to recall those words or
feelings.
For instance, when I see the
spine of Love is a Mix Tape by Rob
Sheffield, I remember that all the chapters in that book began with the song
list of a mix tape, that oh-so-familiar, handwritten side A, side B that I
remember so well from my youth.
What a great idea for introducing the chapters in a book about love and
music and the nineties. And the
spine of The Handbook for Heartbreak
reminds me of meeting Robert Pinksy at a poetry reading at UT and how my sneaky
friends somehow got him to sign my birthday card without me noticing. And my copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary always makes me think of reading that book on
my flight to London in 2001 and trying to do the math of delays and flight
durations and time zones without a smart phone.
I don’t have to open any
of those books to recall those things, but I need their colorful spines on my bookshelf to remind me.
This “phenomenon” (for
lack of a better word) accounts for the times in my life when I have checked
out a book from the library, read it, turned it in, then went out and bought a
copy. It also makes thinning my
shelves that much easier. If I am
able to give a novel away, it means it doesn’t remind me of anything when I
look at it.
But I think some time needs
to pass before I’m able to tell if a book is going to be a long-term
memory-refresher. So the jury’s
still out on these.
What I’ve Been Reading: Books #21-30 of 2013
The Chaperone is a historical fiction novel that tells the story of Cora, a married
woman in her mid-thirties who accompanies the extremely talented (and extremely
stubborn) fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks while she attends a prestigious dance
school in New York City in the summer of 1922. Cora has her own reason for accepting the responsibility of
this rebellious teen, and her discoveries end up changing her life forever.
I enjoyed this book more
than I thought I would. I liked
the characters. It tried to do a
lot though and could have ended a little earlier and some parts were a bit
heavy-handed, such as the numerous references to the corset. I felt like I was being hit over the
head with the symbolism of that particular garment. While I enjoyed the complicated relationships in the book
and the way they evolved over time, this is also a story that makes you look at
your parents and grandparents and wonder how much of what you think you know
about their lives is the truth.
Although most of the book
flowed easily and was written well, I was stumped twice on pages 154-155. (Have you ever read a book and thought,
Huh, this page must have been skipped in
the final edit? That’s how I
felt here.) The book was told in
third person limited from Cora’s perspective, but all of a sudden on page 154,
there’s the line: “What Cora
didn’t know was that she wasn’t alone.”
And then it goes on to describe what people all over New York thought of
the play she was seeing. This
seemed like a strange and unnecessary leap into third person omniscient,
something that I didn’t notice happening anywhere else in the book.
Then, on page 155, there
is the following paragraph, which consists of two sentences:
Sentence 1 – “The show
made all kinds of history.”
Sentence 2 – “Some fifty
years later, when Cora’s godson, the dentist, who was born in Wichita the very
summer Cora was in New York with Louise, and who at the age of twenty had
fought under General Eisenhower in North Africa during World War II, discovered
that his old godmother had seen the 1922 Broadway production of Shuffle Along, he asked her if she had
any memory of a beautiful black girl, who certainly would have stolen the show,
the same girl who would go on to become Josephine Baker, or the most gorgeous
woman in the world, so insanely popular in her adopted France that even the
occupying Nazis were afraid to touch her, the same girl who would be come the
Bronze Venus, or the Black Pearl, or just La Baker, as she was called when she
performed for the Allied troops and whipped Cora’s young godson into such an
obsessive frenzy that when he came home from the war he read everything in
print about La Baker, as if that would improve his chances with her if she ever
decided to leave France and return to America, and maybe someday happen into
Wichita, where she might develop a toothache, sashay into his practice, so he
could forsake his wife and proclaim this enduring love.”
This sentence contains 215
words. (!!!!!) I just read it aloud to my husband and
I had to take seven breaths.
Sheesh! This may be the
longest run-on I have ever seen in print.
But other than pages 154 and 155, the book was pretty good.
22. Dark Moon Digest, Issue #12, Edited by Stan Swanson and Lori MichelleI was psyched to get my story “The Jack-in-the-Box” published in this issue of Dark Moon Digest, and I enjoyed reading the other stories in the collection, especially “Catch You Later” by Arthur Carey. However, I was a bit disappointed in the number of typos in the book.
In my opinion, no short
story collection can satisfy 100%, but this selection of Bradbury stories
contains plenty that will give you the creeps. Some of his earliest published stories appear in this
volume, such as “The Scythe”, “The Crowd”, “The Lake”, and my all-time personal
favorite, “The Emissary”. The October Country is worth buying for
that chilling tale alone. Though
perhaps the most disturbing story in the entire book is “The Small Assassin”,
about an infant determined to kill his parents. Not recommended for pregnant women.
24. On Writing: A Memoir
of the Craft, by Stephen King
Loved it. Cover to cover. I found Stephen King’s tips on writing
helpful and have already begun putting them into practice. I enjoyed the glimpses into his
childhood and personal life as well, and his description of the accident that
nearly killed him made me queasy.
If nothing else, I think that section of the book demonstrates his great
skill as a writer.
I have underlined more
quotes in this book than can possibly be mentioned, but here are just a few:
“We are writers, and we
never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don’t know.”
“Write with the door
closed, rewrite with the door open.”
“I believe the road to hell
is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.”
“I was built with a love
of the night and the unquiet coffin, that’s all. If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.”
25. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
I would never have picked this up if it weren’t for my book club, but it was an interesting read. This nonfiction book is written by a woman who contracted a rare and debilitating virus in her mid-thirties. The illness and its relapses caused her to be bedridden for months at a time, unable to live a normal life, barely able to even move. During a year of her sickness, she had a snail for company in a terrarium next to her bed, and she observed the minute details of this strange pet’s existence, comparing it, at times, to the new pace of her own life.
The book moved a little
slow for me (no pun intended) but it is very short and I did gain a respect for
the snail. It just feels more like
a winter book to me, not quick-paced summer read. Also, I found myself wanting to know more about the author’s
illness.
26. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris
Fans of David Sedaris will
not be disappointed with his latest book.
It made me laugh out loud over and over. (Of course, those who are NOT fans of his work will have the
same objections to this book as to all of his other writing.) I will say though that I did not enjoy
the few fictional point-of-view essays that he threw in. They were too sarcastic and too mean-spirited
for me. But his personal essays
are great, and if you are a fan and ever have the opportunity to go hear him
read, do it. I’ve seen him twice
and he’s hilarious.
27. The Devil’s Rose, by Brom
My friend Scott loaned me
this book, and so far I haven’t spilled anything on it. Go me! This was a fun little story about Hell and redemption and
love and fire demons motorcycles with horse’s heads. The author is also the illustrator and his drawings add a
lot to the enjoyment of the story.
28. The Little Leftover Witch, by Florence Laughlin
I love children’s books
about witches. My favorites, of
course, are the Dorrie books by Patricia Coombs, but I also have copies of Bluenosed Witch, Space Witch, Best Witches,
and others.
When I first saw The Little Leftover Witch on Goodreads,
I thought it was a picture book and began searching for it at Half-Priced. After months of coming up empty
(possibly due to the fact that I was looking in the wrong section) I ordered it
from AbeBooks.com. (If you are a
book lover and you don’t know about AbeBooks, you need to check it out. Great way to find lots of rare books
for reasonable prices.)
It turns out that The Little Leftover Witch, which was
written in 1960, is not a picture book.
It’s a 100-page story about a grumpy little witch who gets left behind
after Halloween. A kind,
compassionate family takes her in and shows her love and patience and, over the
course of a year, the grumpy little witch transforms into a happy little
girl.
It sounds simple, but this
book made me cry, because it’s not really about a little witch at all. It is a wonderfully-written story about
a family adopting a troubled child.
And besides a few minor points (such as the overly simplistic description
of how adoption works) I think it is still very relevant today.
I highly recommend this
book for parents and children alike.
In fact, I think it would be a great one to read together.
Yes, I finally read this
classic. I knew the basic story, I
had seen the movie, I had seen spoofs of the movie, and I had even tried
(without success) to get through Pride
and Prejudice and Zombies, but I had never in fact made it all the way
through the actual book. This time
I did it. And while I shall not
gush over it as much as many of my friends would like me to, I did enjoy it.
30. Another Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin
I’ll admit it—I bought
this book because the titles of the series are awesome and right up my
alley. Another Fine Myth, Myth
Conceptions, Myth Directions, Hit or
Myth… they go on and on and I love them all. But the book was not up to the level I wanted it to be. The writing was immature and the jokes
didn’t have enough punch and the end managed to be both too convoluted and too
simple all at the same time. Still,
it was an easy read and entertained me on my plane rides last week. Since the second book is also included
in the volume I bought, I may give Asprin one more chance before I give up on
him. After all, I wouldn’t want to
myth-judge.
On to the Next Ten Books!
Click here if you’d like
to follow my reading progress on Goodreads!
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