Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Books You Carry With You

I love books, their size, weight, smell. I love book covers, endpapers, dedication pages, versos. I love it when books have a little ribbon book mark attached to their binding--why don't they all have that? I love paperbacks, hard covers, audiobooks, and I would have one of every electronic reader if I could afford it, which is why I don't have any...yet....I love bookstores, new or used, brick or online, independent or chain.

There are specific books that I love so much I've read them more times than I care to admit, and I buy copies of them over and over to give as gifts. One of those is "Operating Instructions: a Journal of My Son's First Year", by Anne Lamott. She went on to be one of the regular columnists for the online magazine salon.com, for a section entitled "Mothers Who Think". I am a fan of her non-fiction, which I recommend you listen to, if you're into audiobooks. She reads them herself. When an author is also a gifted reader, it's a doubly exquisite experience. (If you don't believe in audiobooks yet, try something by Bill Bryson, or Frank McCourt, or listen to Eat, Pray, Love. Quick, quick, before the movie comes out.)

Recently one of my friends announced to our stitchery group that she would disown us as friends if we didn't read Mountains Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder. I happened upon a copy a few days later at a book sale, but haven't read it yet. (Don't tell her.)

What about you? Do you pick up Pride and Prejudice every summer? Set sail with Master and Commander from time to time? Do you have a go-to book when you need a good laugh (Mapp and Lucia), or a good cry (the last two pages of Sounder)? Did you give all your friends The Color of Water? Tell everyone to try Bad Monkeys? Tell me....I'd like to know...

13 comments:

  1. I loved The Friends of Freeland by Brad Leithauser. I loved The Time of our Singing by Richard Powers. I loved Travels with My Donkey--really!--and In These Girls Hope is a Muscle, this one recommended by Julie's brother. I loved the description of the Pont du Gard in Luminous Debris.

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  2. My all time fav is: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. But the first book I carried was Senior year: Wonderland Avenue by Danny Sugarman, Door's groupie! The first time I had a connection with a book.

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  3. "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis radically changed my life when I was in my early 20's. Instantly fell in love with reading, C.S. Lewis and God -- all for the first time.

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  4. The one I have gone back to more times in my life then any other is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

    As an aside, the first time I ever met you was in Dadeland Mall and we discussed Kurt Vonnegut.

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  5. The 3 books I've read multiple times are The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, and Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

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  6. I rarely re-read a book. Books that have really touched me seem trite years later. In my 20's, I read Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund. I thought it was the most incredible book I ever read. Years later, it did not speak to me at all. I recently re-read Heinrich Boll's The Clown, and it also was a disappointment. When I really enjoy a book, I know it was the right book for me at that moment. I will relish it, savor it, but I will not re-read it.

    I actually feel the same way about books that are made into movies. If I loved the book, I will not see the movie. There is no way someone else can adequately translate the imagery and story that I have conjured in my mine.

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  7. John Dos Passos, USA Trilogy; Henry Roth, Call It Sleep; Peter Matthiessen, Killing Mister Watson; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God - these are a few of the books I return to again and again. They grow more interesting with each read, and open themselves up to different readings depending upon where I am in my life - this permeability of text is to me a hallmark of a well crafted novel.

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  8. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Joanne Greenberg. I read it when I was 16. It changed my life. I re-read it often.

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  9. When I was younger I reread "Catcher in the Rye," every year. I haven't revisited many books these days, but I often think fondly of "Geek Love," by Katherine Dunn; "Kitchen," by Banana Yoshimoto; and "The God of Small Things," by Arundhati Roy.

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  10. One of my greatest mom moments occurred a few weeks ago, when my 12 yr old son said, "Mom? I'm reading this book, it's really good. It's called "The Catcher in the Rye"...He liked it a lot. It was great to talk about it with him. Made me want to re-read it, and "Franny and Zoey", too. One of my dad's favorite stories was Salinger's "The Laughing Man"...

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  11. Oh my, The Glass family is perhaps my favorite family in all of literature.

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  12. Mountains Upon Mountains is excellent. Love this blog! I could read it every day:-)
    I recommend "Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoirs of a Dublin Woman" by Nuala O'Faolain. It's Angela's Ashes by a woman who writes superbly.

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  13. Yes! We had it in audio at one point. Another memoir that stays with me is A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas. I love her writing style.

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