Booking Treats

Thursdays are fun thanks to Deb at: http://btt2.wordpress.com/

What is the best book you ever bought for yourself?

Given I majored in English, I bought a lot of books in college, though most of them were by male authors. When I bought Kate Chopin's The Awakening for my American Lit. class, I thought I had died and gone to heaven; finally, a novel by a woman I could relate to. Immediately, I checked out both volumes of her short stories from the University Library and wrote a paper which I would later give to my mother for Christmas. (It may be the best Christmas present I've ever given too!) Find more here: http://www.katechopin.org/

And, why? What made it the best? What made it so special?

Kate Chopin explored edges of her life and of being a woman at the turn of the century that spoke to this young college student in 1983! It's one of the only books I did not re-sell at the campus bookstore (along with the huge volume of Shakespeare's Complete Works that I've schlepped around all these years.)

Green Chair

Beside the green chair, where she sits in solitude overlooking the garden that calls for her presence, is a bookshelf which holds her collection of sacred texts: her Girl Scout Handbook; an autographed copy of Where the Red Fern Grows; a collection of Anne Sexton’s poetry – a graduation gift from her favorite English teacher in high school. This bookshelf holds a collection for recovery, Shakespeare’s Complete Works and a photo album from a previous life.

Intentionally small, when she gets around to dusting and re-shelving, she’ll sort through her titles and part with one or two: generally to make room for new editions that better feed her soul. “Should someone write my eulogy based on the titles on these shelves,” she thought, “it might reflect an interesting course.”

What was she reading at the time of her departure? What was the first book she ever read? What title had the most influence on her life as an adolescent? As a mom; a daughter; a friend? What title made her laugh? Made her stretch? Pissed her off?

What if, when we die, our friends and family gather at our bookshelves as a way of celebrating our efforts at navigating this lifetime and select one as a token of their loved one? Which books would we will to each other and why?

She knew that the words of others were the balms and salves that helped her heal and traverse a common journey. Perhaps some of her own writing should be archived here. The rest, she would take with her. Her ashes mixed with the ashes of her journals - scattered somewhere she loved to be - on a favorite river, probably.