"A book is like a garden carried in your pocket."
~Chinese Proverb~
Winter has closed in again...slate grey skies and clouds of birds, ice on the windowpanes and a tea kettle kept warm on the stove top, hot baths and heavy quilts and more than the usual (insane) amount of reading going on around here. I am an unrepentant/lustful reader: anytime, anyplace and always on the look-out for the next book to take to bed with me or tuck into my bag should the opportunity for a random literary "quickie" present itself. As much as I appreciate the (a-hem) conquest and collection of new titles, last week I stumbled across my old battered copy of The Catcher in the Rye from high school and couldn't help but to start re-reading it.
Here's where I also confess to another dirty little bookish secret...I *write* in my copies. Constantly. At times, to the point where it almost resembles a conversation in the margins of the book between the author and myself. There's underlining of words or turns of phrase that make my heart skip a beat...jotted notes on what the section reminds me of...reflections on where I was when I read a given page. So it goes without saying that my favorites begin to resemble journals in places and, as it was with that teenage copy of the Salinger book, I can catch glimpses of myself in between the lines.
In my Catcher in the Rye, I can read not only about old Holden Caulfield and his misery at Pencey Prep and the "phonies" he encounters there, but also see notes from my fifteen-year-old self. When Holden vanishes into the gritty New York streets and ends up with a prostitute he refuses to sleep with and drinking in museums, I can read my vicarious thrill and fear over what would happen next. In the quieter places of the book, where he thinks about his brother, Allie, and how surviving the death of your brother "makes you insane," I can run my fingers across the yellowing paper and feel the indentations from how hard I pressed my pen there, furiously scribbling--my own older brother had died just two years before and I understood Holden's darkness and the pain of this loss down to my very bones. This book makes all the top 100 lists out there according to professionals and readers alike who admire Holden's voice and Salinger's craft...it makes mine for those personal reasons and became the first book I (re)read in the new year.
This got me thinking about other books I already own and have read and savored. Day after day, these titles sit on the shelves gathering dust while I devour new ones, always on the hunt for true book-love. I decided to start 2010 by re-reading 10 of my favorites...the only rule I gave myself was that the books had to be on the shelf right then and there. (I share books freely with people in my life and some of my "ultimate" favorites are circulating out on the town right now, so this helped me make my initial selections.) These 10 do not necessarily represent my TOP 10 exactly. To be honest, I'm not the type of reading-girl to agree to one definitive "best of" list (go ahead, call me a commitment-phobe-book-slut, I know!) but these are 10 important to me for various reasons and also sitting on the bookshelf at the time.
There are so many others I am still crushing on that "give good read"...so I looked for books that had a more-than-average amount of my own writing in them as well, to refine the process and to see what I can learn not only about the literature, but about myself at the time of reading. I will be writing and sharing about my first 10 here, so watch this space and if you decide to check into any of these titles, please let me know! Finally, if you want to be promiscuous in your reading in general and cover the virginal pages of a published book with your own luscious ink...I promise, your secret is safe with me.
