In a sea of, well, ick, there is one pure delight to which I constantly turn: deciding what book to read next. At the moment, I’m well-stocked at home with Books That Need To Be Read, which is fantastic, like having your own private bookstore, and I love browsing my shelves.
Shelves that are full of Books I Love, Books I Hate, Books I Go Back To For Comfort, Books I Keep To Remind Me Of Where I Was When I Read Them (these usually still have plane tickets shoved between their pages), and best of all Books I Am Saving.
Why do I have Books I Hate (which are closely connected to Books I Will Never Read)? Here’s the thing: I like looking at my books. As an activity. I start at one end of my shelves, look at titles, pull things down, flip through looking for favorite passages. And when I come to One I Hate, I am either amused at its badness (which I will not share in public) or have a pleasant mini-rant to myself about what I didn’t like. Books I Will Never Read are excellent place holders for Books Yet To Be Bought.
But when I’m trying to figure out what to read next, I’m not sure exactly what happens. Sometimes a title strikes me. Sometimes it’s the design on the spine. My mood might guide me. Maybe I know I love the author (these are usually The Books I Am Saving). I might read the first page or a random page in the middle, or skim the jacket copy, feel the paper inside and that on the cover. I don’t have any system except to never make a blind choice. It feels something approaching mystical.
I generally don’t want to be bothered when I’m browsing, although there are a very few people whose careful input I welcome (some of my favorite memories from growing up are nights spent Looking At Books with my father). But regardless, I like to take my time. Because this is a perfect pleasure.
So tell me about your books:
A Book You Love
A Book You Hate
A Book You Go Back To For Comfort
A Book You Keep To Remind You Of Where You Were When You Read It
A Book You Are Saving
Here are mine:
A Book I Love: Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell. Yeah. I know. You’re stunned.
Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.
Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind from scratching itself raw.
Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished.
I could go on, but you’d be better off just reading it.
A Book I Hate: I feel terrible saying bad things about anyone’s book in public. The Bridges of Madison County. Apologies to Robert James Waller. You want to hear my rant, it will have to be in private.
A Book I Go Back To For Comfort: There are many, but the first was These Happy Golden Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d probably read it a hundred times before I was ten.
A Book I Keep To Remind Me Of Where I Was When I Read It: Caesar’s Women - Colleen McCullough. Read on a secluded beach on Santorini. Includes Olympic Air ticket and also fits into another category. You can guess which.
A Book I Am Saving: A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham. I’m told the third chapter is flawless.
When I wake up (pray that it’s late) and after I’ve had tea (brought direct from India just for me), I’ll come back to see yours……
xo
Tasha
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Love: Well, I’d say my favorite book is The Stand. Stephen King’s classic good vs. evil. Hunt for Red October by Clancy is right up there.
Hate is such a strong word and there are two titles that come to mind. My Calculus II textbook and The Principals of Thermodynamics, by Dr. Look (class taught by Dr. Look, who, by the way, was an ass). That class, in my senior year, second semester of Engineering School almost gave me a nervous breakdown. OK, for novels, Seizure by Robin Cook and State of Fear by Michael Crichton. Now, both of those books kept me going on my own first novel, because I knew I could do better. Much better.
I don’t have any comfort books. I have comfort movies.
I have a shelf for books that have traveled around the world with me. Since I’ve been to China a number of times, it’s a pretty big shelf. All of them have boarding passes in them for bookmarks. OH, one book on that shelf is Marked by Fate, GG Laura’s latest/last? Jenkins and Burns mystery. My copy actually visited the Great Wall.
Saving? My TBR pile is huge and growing, but to say they’re being saved? Nah. I have a First Edition copy of The Stand uncut edition that I will never let go of. I’m saving that for me and maybe someday a signature.
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Perfect post this morning, Tasha.
A Book I Love: Little House on the Prairie’s On the Banks of Plum Creek.
A Book I Hate: Pass.
Comfort: My well worn copy of MHC’s A Cry in the Night. Not a comfort plot, but a comfort book for many reasons.
Reminder Book: Harlan Coben’s Tell No One. The inscription will forever be a reminder.
A Book I am Saving: At this point, everything in my TBR because I need TBW.
Between our two hour chat (and accompanying reflection that followed) and this entry…you’ve inspired my blog for next Tuesday.
by Laura
on September 12th, 2008 at 8:38 am
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And Will…it’s the last.
Onward.
by Laura
on September 12th, 2008 at 8:39 am
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Love: The Count of Monte Cristo. I saw the most recent movie before I ever thought of picking up the book, and I’m amazed I can even watch it after reading this classic, but the elements are all there. Friendship, love, betrayal, revenge…some things we all have, some we wonder if we will ever have, and some we wish we were smart and devious enough to exact on others.
Hate: Ugh. The Jane Austen Book Club. I really wanted to like this book, but every turn of the page just frustrated me more. I found only one redeeming character in it (other than Jane of course!). Hate is a pretty strong word, but I certainly was extremely disappointed!
Comfort: Other than the Bible, I’m not sure I have a comfort book either. I’m more of a comfort movie person too. However, I have recently thought about re-reading the Harry Potter series…but I don’t think that’s about comfort…I just need some adventure.
Keep To Remind: Well. I keep all of my books, but what comes to mind here are the drafts of a few books I’ve printed out and read on various trips. They are nothing fancy, but because I had the honor of reading them in their infancy, they are special to me.
Saving: Black Swan Green. I know you know it’s David Mitchell. I’m trying to decide if I’m smart enough to read it. I have yet to come to that conclusion. But it sits there with a large pile of other books waiting for me to enter their pages…I’ll get there one day. Really. I will.
by Carrie
on September 12th, 2008 at 8:40 am
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A Book You Love - Gaudy Night. No comment should be necessary.
A Book You Hate - The DaVinci Code. I know a lot of people love it, but to me it was snoringly boring. Soporific, in fact. 
A Book You Go Back To For Comfort - Trixie Belden
A Book You Keep To Remind You Of Where You Were When You Read It - I don’t think I have such a one. There are books I have left over from childhood, but I don’t think that’s the reason I keep them. And I’ve read books in some interesting places, but unless the book was good, I’m not keeping it.
A Book You Are Saving - the concept is foreign, sorry. The only reason I have for not diving into a book immediately, is having no time.
Hope you’re feeling better, dahling. Give me a holler sometime, OK?
by JennieB
on September 12th, 2008 at 10:00 am
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Will, a math textbook is a perfect thing to hate! And I have lots and lots of comfort movies. Think I’ve watched all of them in the past week.
Laura, glad I could help you find inspiration! Can’t wait to read your post—and loved getting to chat last night.
Carrie, it is ABSURD that you would even think for half a second you’re not smart enough to read BLACK SWAN GREEN. Don’t make me come to California and shake you!!!!
“Who has need of a divine creator who must sell inferior marmalade?” — you really must read this book!
Jennie, we’re long, long overdue for a chat. I keep thinking I’m going to get back down to Nashville and then I don’t. Ugh. Am turning in revisions next week and then will be on the road for about a week. Let’s plan to definitely talk after that! I miss you!!!!
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Feel better, sweetie!
Let’s see:
A Book You Love - Vladimir Nabokov’s LOLITA
A Book You Hate - I reviewed a book once called X, it was horrid.
A Book You Go Back To For Comfort - Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER
A Book You Keep To Remind You Of Where You Were When You Read It - Crap. I’m in Colorado, so it’s a hard one because I can’t look at my shelves.
A Book You Are Saving - GAUDY NIGHT. No, I’ve never read it, and I can’t wait. I need illness and a good long rainy day.
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Thanks! I now have no voice, which is always interesting. But it’s nice and quiet around here…..
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Good post. Now I have new suggestions to add to my TBR pile.
Love: I hate answering this question, because there are so-freaking-many!!! Umm, off the top of my head, The Hobbit, Ransom, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables — do any of those need an explanation?, Working for the Devil — love the character of Dante Valentine, I’m gonna stop now
Hate: Grapes of Wrath — could have been half the length it was, I understand the here’s what everyone was experiencing and here’s how they were experiencing the same thing, but good Lord that book got boring real quick. Also, umm, an entire (albeit short) chapter about a turtle crossing the road? Really? I love John Steinbeck, but not this one.
Comfort: Lots of these also, but the one that jumped to mind immediately was A Wrinkle in Time — especially the part with Aunt Beast, always makes me feel safe and loved for some reason … LOVE that whole series
Where: The Emily of New Moon series, and again, a LOT of others, but this one in particular puts me back in my room in the wee hours as a kid hanging over the side of my bed on the side against the wall with the flashlight so my parents wouldn’t see the glow and know I was up late reading yet again …
Saving: Going with the theme here, I also have a lot of these because I don’t just have a TBR pile, I have several TBR shelves because I haven’t read a single book I’ve bought over the past year — I’ve been too busy reading the ones I get from the library (my librarian automatically goes to the holds shelf when I walk in, it’s kind of like my nerdy version of Cheers) but a few that jump out immediately are Saint City Sinners — can’t wait to see what happens with Dante next — Ireland, by Frank Delaney because I’ve heard nothing but good things about it and I’m looking forward to snuggling in with it, and Tolkien’s Lost Tales, because I’ve always wanted to read it 
Yup, it’s official, I feel a reading weekend coming up in my near future — sneaking off somewhere where I can’t/won’t be distracted by other people and can just revel in reading book after book after book
by Katherine C.
on September 12th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
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A Book You Love
I have to pick ONE…? W. Berry’s “Home Economics”
A Book You Hate
At the moment, anything having to do with Clifford the Big Red Dog
A Book You Go Back To For Comfort
a very formal 19th cent. translation of “The Count of Monte Cristo”
A Book You Keep To Remind You Of Where You Were When You Read It
“The Devil on the Cross” by Ngugi wa’ Thiongo (his novel written in prison); I read it while taking a class from him in grad school. It was the only class I’ve ever taken from an author & if I could have picked any author in the world to study with, it’s him.
A Book You Are Saving
The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
by Cynthia
on September 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
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Will said: “Love: Well, I’d say my favorite book is The Stand. Stephen King’s classic good vs. evil.”
Ok Will - I totally agree with you. The journey to redemption for the world? THe Talisman and Black House fall into the love catagory too. For the same reason.
Hate: Wicked. Didn’t get into it. And One of Ms. Shreve’s: The last time they met. Hated the ending. Almost threw the book out the window of the car.
Comfort: Illusions - Richard Bach.
Reminder book: Here’s where I’ll put A Wrinkle in Time. Not a good memory. But it taught me to look for books to escape the hell I was living.
Saving a book: Are you kidding? On my desk right now I can see 28 books. Most I’m waiting to have time to read. But I’m impatient. I don’t save books I devour them.
by Lynn
on September 12th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
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Love- The Eight by Katherine Neville
Hate-A Walk Across America- Peter Jenkins
Comfort-The Middle Window-Elizabeth Goudge
Reminder Book- To Kill A Mockingbird
Saving the Book-The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, because I loved The House at Riverton so much
by Julie
on September 15th, 2008 at 5:00 am
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