Bluestocking Books associate Mary Lyons serves up a slice of literary life in her essay -
Sentimental Books - A Piece of You
Recently on a family text thread, my niece Haley told us (her sister, my brothers, her other aunt, my parents) that she had created A Room of Her Own in her new home and had a bookshelf which didn't have enough books. Imagine that! (I couldn't.) Finding a booklover with a sparse bookshelf - unless they are an excruciatingly disciplined minimalist - is like finding a rabid cat lover who doesn't already have three to five cats - who doesn't even have one cat! (For the record, Haley has seven cats.)
My
niece asked us a question which will always warm the hearts of older
generations: what books do you love which you recommend to the people you love?
Well, actually Haley said it best:" I want to add some sentimental books
to my collection to have a piece of each of you." The responses flowed in
on the text thread --
Ashley (her sister): "I mean, Dracula or Dorian
Gray. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft."
AJ (her other aunt): "The first that came to
mind was a book that G'ma read to me: The Shining. I remember being around 12
years old and plopping right down in front of her while she was reading and
asking ‘what's going on in this chapter?’ She would read and I was riveted. (I
knew that Joy/G was cool, but reading Stephen King to your 12-year-old
daughter? That is badass.)"
Her dad (my brother): " Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance. Mary, can you find me a copy?"
Nana (my mom): "The Heaven Tree Trilogy. I cry
every time I read the last 40 pages. It's so beautiful." (My mom is a
gentle soul, but she is also very practical. She doesn't just cry willy-nilly
like some people. A sentimental choice indeed.)
Next up my brother Mike mentioned reading The Stand
over Christmas break 1976, and soon enough Haley was talking about tearing
through The Exorcist.
I watched from the sidelines and realized that, like
some of my family members, I have a macabre taste in books. Don't get me wrong,
I have many kinds of favorite books, not just one or two titles. But the books
that were blaring their car horns to get noticed in this company would not be
ignored: Memento Mori by Muriel Spark and The Night Side of the River by
Jeanette Winterson. Both are creepy, both have elements of the supernatural
nudging up against the day-to-day reality of real humans and their hopes,
dreams, and foibles. Both authors are great stylists. Both books leave an
impression which resonates for me.
Somehow, I couldn't share these titles - my
recommendations - in the text thread. I waited a few days and chimed in:
"Haley, I'm going to send you a couple books."
It feels a little bit like choosing a very favorite
book for a book club. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to introduce
the book - I don't want to have to explain why I love it or justify why I picked
it. I certainly don't want anyone to tear it apart. It's like poetry when it's
obscure - I don't want to have to explain what it means, take a test, or break
it down word by idiom. Can't I just love it and share it with you?
A customer brought her daughter to the bookshop to
pick out and share some of her favorite books while she could. She wanted her
daughter to have a vast array of books to get to know her mom even better in
the coming years. I have to admit, I got choked up. Our customer, with her
beautiful smile and amethyst eyes comforted me and told me it would all be
alright. I think she was right. She was sowing the seeds of a conversation her
daughter could continue to have with her. She was writing the future, and some
of her favorite authors were guiding her pen.
If you love a book - really treasure it - you don't
have to protect it from the scoffs and misreads of the reading public, you owe
it to your most important people to share it. If it works out, they will invite
it to dinner. They hear its stories, watch its manners at the dinner table,
love or tolerate the way it laughs, then decide if they will never ever invite
it in again or welcome it into their home with open arms and remember its
favorite drink. I don't even like Muriel Spark as a person. At least, I don't
think I do. But I will invite in anything she has ever written.
List of books mentioned in this essay:
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
The Shining by Stephen King
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
The Heaven Tree Trilogy by Edith Pargeter (out-of-print : contact Bluestocking Books for a bespoke search)
The Stand by Stephen King
The Exorcist by William P. Blatty
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
The Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson
