Bookish
Posted on 02. Feb, 2009 by Deb in The Girl
One of the losses I had in the flood incident were the bookcases in my bedroom. None of the books were damaged, but the task of putting the books in laundry baskets for storage until the room was in shape to install new bookcases reminded me that it was time to sort through again. Some of the books stayed in a laundry basket for eventual transferal to somewhere other than my house (maybe half-price books, maybe Goodwill). Many of my books, of course, I kept.
Some books are series from authors I read. When they were neatly arranged back in my shelves, I realized that four of the series are suspense / mystery. I guess I never got over my first love of series, which were the Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew books. I have replaced all my Trixie books and they are in my closet. There were just too many Nancy’s to duplicate. There are a scattering of romance novels, biographies, history, books of my children’s early childhood and books I consider reference books. There are also classics. Maybe not classics to the world at large, but classics to me. These are the boooks I cannot imagine every parting with.
Among them:
- Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. My father went to high school with John, who was a couple of years older than he. John’s 2nd wife was in my father’s graduation class. But that’s not the reason I have kept it since I was a Junior in High School. I kept it because it taught me to look beyond skin color, which is my nature now, but remember I grew up in a small town where, until 1985, there was not a black person that actually lived within the city limits.
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. To stand in another’s shoes. I re-read it once or twice a year and always find something new that speaks to me.
- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This is the first novels (that wasn’t a “kid” novel) I can recall reading, I believe either in the 5th or 6th grade. The movie is beautiful, but the novel is so much better. Scarlett was a seflish bitch at times, but she also sacrificed much to care for her family.
Of the kid books I have kept, there is Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon, Cat’s Colors, Harry the Dirty Dog and Madeline.
There are others, of course. Many of those live in my office as opposed to my bedroom. Like Shakespeare’s Complete Works, Flyboys by James Bradley, McCullough’s 1776, Calculated Risk by Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, and a handful of other WWII era biographies and books on aviation that would likely bore you.
It got me to wondering about the books that other readers hang on to. What about you?