Thursday, August 27, 2009

What do your favorite books look like?

I've been cleaning my apartment lately, sorting through those piles that grow like dust bunnies on steroids.

All that to say, I've been going through lots of books. You can tell the ones that I've spent a lot of time with.

My 20 year old paperback Anne of Green Gables books are missing covers. The pages are yellowed and brittle. There are chocolate stains on more than a few pages.

My green, cloth covered, A Christmas Carol has hot chocolate stains on it's cover and pages.

Fran Slayton's When the Whistle Blows has spaghetti stains on a few pages.

I could go on, but you get the picture. (It probably involves me eating something, which seems to be what I do when I settle down with a good read.)

So what do your favorite books look like? Are they pristine? Food stained? Tear stained? I'd love to know.




3 comments:

Scott said...

OMG - I love 'Anne of Green Gables'. I have an old hardback version of the first book. LOVE. IT!

The most worn books in my collection are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. For a while I was reading them every year, and now I'm down to about every two years. Thankfully, the digital version became available on Kindle, so I downloaded those to give my poor hardbacks a rest. They're in sad, sad shape.

I have two copies of Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, so I alternate which one I read, hoping to preserve the books!

My copy of A Song for Arbonne, also by Kay, was chewed by my cat Jordy, so it looks a little ragged.

Food stains? Check. Coffee stains? Check. Wine stains? Check. Dog-Earred? Check. Yeah, my favorites are well read and I wouldn't have it any other way.

S

Michelle said...

My favorites are not particularly well-worn. As Sarah learned recently, I have a tendency to lend things and then forget who I lent them to. This happens with books a lot. So with my most favorite titles, I end up eventually buying another copy!

I can honestly say that I've never worn the copy off a book, but I've owned multiple incarnations of The Secret Garden, The Little House series, and the Chronicles of Narnia. I believe I have two sets of that right now, as well as a paperback and hardcover of the Secret Garden. One to keep, one to share.

Scott, I used to read both the Secret Garden and Narnia annually. I don't have time for that so much anymore, but I still revisit them occasionally.

Sarah said...

Scott, I have reddish hair, but I longed for truly red hair for years after reading and re-reading the Anne series. I grew up with those books.

And I need to get Lord of the Rings! It's been a few years since I last read them. The first time I read the Trilogy, I got the books from the library. They were older editions, with the fold out map of Middle Earth pasted to the back cover. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Michelle, how could I forget Narnia? Those books actually disintegrated. I wore the old paperbacks out completely. That was back when The Magician's Nephew was the sixth book instead of the first. (That modern change of the book order still irritates me.)