A Bluestocking Knits

Booking Through Thursday noticed last week what a disproportionate number of participants had Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings either in their list of "most tattered" books or featured in the photos. So . . .

1. Have you read Lord of the Rings?  Oh, yes.
2. If so, how many times have you read it? Just once? Or so many you can’t count?  Innumerable times.  Maybe it’s time for a re-read, now that I think about it.
3. If not, why not? Not your cup of tea?
4. And, while we’re on the subject, did you see the Oscar-winning movie(s)? What did you think?  Well — I’ve talked about this before, oh, more than once, I see — but now that a few years have passed, I feel that on the whole, while the movies were very good adaptations of Tolkien’s books, and while I have enjoyed watching the movies a number of times, I felt a deeper connection to the "Narnia" movie than to the "Lord of the Rings".

Sorry, I was fantasizing so much about quilting that I forgot that it was Booking Through Thursday yesterday.

1. What is the most battered book in your collection? The one with loose pages, tattered corners, and page edges so soft that there’s not even a risk of paper cuts anymore?  Oh, I love those soft edges! loose pages and torn dust jackets bother me (and so I mend them carefully), but I feel lucky to come across one with edges like velvet.
2. Why is this book so tattered? Is it that you love it so much that you’ve read it a zillion times? Is it a reference book you’ve used every day for the last seven years? Something your new puppy teethed on when you weren’t looking?  I suppose that it’s unfair to blame these books’ decrepitude entirely on myself, as they are paperbacks of a certain age, with all of the brittle and yellowing paper that that implies.  But these three — chosen at random from the first shelf I visited — are some that I remember reading over and over again, and I’m surprised now that they are still relatively whole.  Princess Tales was a Scholastic purchase — flyers were handed out regularly in school, and you could order a book or two and it would be delivered in class a week or so later.  I got this one in late elementary school, so I was around ten or eleven, I guess — it cost sixty cents! — it’s one of the few I still have (the others are Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink, and a Romeo and Juliet with the lovely Olivia Hussey on the cover).  I wasn’t princess-mad in the way that my own girls are today — some girls I knew did have lots of frilly things like that, but it was generally a lot less widespread than it is now.  I loved the adventure, probably more than the romance, and the international flavor of this collection as well, with stories from England, France, Ireland, Morocco, and such, much like Andrew Lang’s collections, which I also devoured at the public library.  (E. Nesbit’s Melisande is still available in some places with lovely illustrations by P.J. Lynch.)  As a mother now, and a feminist, I appreciate the variety of characters I see in this collection, not the rather silly and ineffective ones like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, who simply wait around for the prince to save them or recognize their beauty, but ones like Jay Williams’ "The Practical Princess," who does the rescuing herself, or bad-tempered ones like "The Princess and the Vagabone."  Much more interesting!  The Diary of Anne Frank needs no introduction from me, of course; this is probably the book that I reread most often as a teenager, and what started me keeping a diary at the tender age of twelve.  Every rereading brought something home to me — the fact that teenagers could write so well, that I wasn’t the only one with those kinds of feelings, the horrors of war and their price in human suffering.  (I have a lot to thank Anne for.)  I actually remember buying The Song of Bernadette, from one of those revolving wire racks, I think at the grocery store, of all places — I was in high school, I guess, and already fascinated in a strange and inexplicable way by nuns and the monastic life (since I am not Catholic and am far too self-indulgent for such a life).  I read this book many times, and mended the bumped and rubbed cover carefully with Scotch tape.  Werfel wrote brilliantly, and I was impressed even then that a German Jewish man could so interestingly and effortlessly convey the story of a French Catholic girl.  (Another lesson most likely unlooked-for by the author, that people whom one wouldn’t expect to understand things very often do.)

I’m catching up this week — three posts in one.

Booking Through Thursday this week is brought to you by Deb.

1. What is the most pristine, perfect book in your collection? The one that looks like it’s never been opened (and in fact may never have been)? Whose binding is uncracked, the corners still perfect?  I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book without opening it, and I rarely bring one home without at least perusing it that day, if not reading it fairly soon (although it may take a while for me to get started on it, to be sure).  I take good care of my books, even paperbacks, and so barring some unfortunate accident, they are generally in good condition.
2. Why is that book so perfect? Was it a gift? Is it a coffee table book too beautiful to use? Something you simply have no interest in and haven’t bothered to open?  If a book is beautiful, then it deserves to be read, and I love looking at beautiful books; I also don’t keep books I’ve no interest in.  The one in my collection in most pristine condition at the moment is probably the very newest, The Week-end Book edited by Francis Meynell.  It’s a lovely little volume of chapters designed to fill one’s week-ends in the country, something to stick in a pocket before a long walk, or leave on the nightstand and skim before bed.  There are identifcation guides for flowers and animal tracks and architecture and birdsongs — including musical bars written-out — recipes and poems and games and rounds to sing in the evenings, all written with exceedingly proper British prose and wit.  (I am very amused at the publisher’s note on Amazon, "with various editions and altercations," though I suppose this was not on purpose.)  I’ve in fact gotten lost for the past ten minutes in the article on penmanship — "PPS.  W.R. Lethaby once wrote: ‘A common interest in the improvement of ordinary handwriting would be an immense disciplinary force; we might reform the world if we began with our own handwriting but we certainly shall not unless we begin somewhere’"!

The questions for the week of July 6 were suggested by Christine.

1. Do you read non-fiction books for pleasure, not counting books required for courses or for work?  Absolutely.  I used to read a lot more fiction, but for some reason, in the last five years or so if not more, I’ve gravitated more towards non-fiction.
2. If so, what areas of non-fiction interest you the most? If not, why not?  History (social history, more often than not) and biography, literary criticism.  I’m currently reading a paperback copy of John Guy’s Queen of Scots, which I found in a box of stuff that my aunt was giving away.  The last biography of Mary that I read was Antonia Fraser’s, some years ago, and although I tend to lean towards Elizabeth I’s side of the story (if I have to choose sides atal), I still find myself fascinated by the goings-on in 16th-century Britain.  (The copy that I read was a library book that had been extensively annotated — in pen — by a rabid supporter of Mary, who made such vicious and copious notes in the margins that it quite colored my reading of the book and stands very clearly in my memory of it.  Funny, how such things can affect the reading of a book.  I felt quite defensive of Elizabeth.)

The questions for the week of June 29 were suggested by Marie.

1. Do you ever reread your books?  Oh, yes — some more than others, of course.  But one of my criteria for buying a book is whether or not I intend/hope to read it more than once — otherwise, it’s a library read.  I found Anne Fadiman’s Rereadings to be a fascinating look at this very topic, the rereading of long-ago favorites.
2. If so, which ones? If not, why not?  Novelists that I love — D.E. Stevenson, Tolkien, Jane Austen, Eva Ibbotson — nonfiction and biographies that inspire me (through the subject or the author’s writing).
3. Do you read the books the whole way through or pick through for favorite scenes?  I don’t often go straight to favorite scenes unless it’s just to verify a quote or passage, in which case I don’t consider that really rereading.
4. What qualifies a book for the reread pile?  Something that captures my imagination, whether through brilliant writing, locales I love, "kindred spirit" characters, it could be any number of things!