Day 17: Books

[bluflamingo]

shinya_diey asked me about books:

We always had books in the house when I was a kid, and I'm the same now, even though I don't read a great deal at the moment. I have three bookcases, mostly non-fiction, recipe books, anthologies I've been published in, and old favourite fantasy fiction.

I remember my parents reading to me and my sister when we were little - she and I got to take turns choosing. My dad read us The Hobbit, and maybe some of Lord of the Rings as well - we taped the cartoon version, and my sister and I watched it till we wore out the tape. My sister liked the Mogg books, and she's named (by me!) after a character in a book I read (or my parents read to me, I guess) a bit before she was born. Apparently, when I was very little, I made my mum read Little Grey Rabbit to me all the time, to the point that I knew if she missed a bit, and would keep reciting the story if she stopped reading.

My favourite book is Cuckoo in the Nest, by Michelle Magorian. I borrowed it from the school library when I was 11 or 12, and then dragged my parents into every bookstore we passed the whole summer, looking for a copy. I still have the same copy, though it's starting to fall apart from being read so much. I also have a much newer copy signed by the author, who I almost got to meet. I volunteered at the Literature Festival near me a few years back, but had to come back to Bristol for one day, for the launch of the project I worked on, which was the day she was at the festival and I missed her. It was a good five years ago, and I'm still bitter, especially since she's never come back.

What else can I say about books? I love secondhand bookstores, and the random things you find there - my dad's Christmas present this year is from a secondhand bookstore. I like older, battered books, ones that feel loved, more than brand new books, and paperbacks over hardbacks, though I'll always try to give a hardback rather than
a paperback as a gift if I can... And that's me and books, I think.

Comments

[shinya_diey]

That reminds me of very fond memories of my childhood as well :) My parents always have read books. Me and my sister loved when dad read us children books, some even from his or mum childhood. Thanks to that we fell in love with books as well. Now I'm more into electronic copies because I don't have any more space for real books, they are everywhere, even my windowsill is full of them ^^;

[bluflamingo]

That is a LOT of books.