Introducing ShelfTalk: Books You Were Pining For During Your Last Move
Recently I’ve noticed that Publishers Weekly, the weekly trade publication for those in the book business, has been inviting visitors to its site to talk back about books, writers, and reading. I’ve been inspired by these posts and would like to start an occasional query here on Bentley’s Book Buzz.
Given that it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I’d like to think about the books you love. As taken directly from the ShelfTalker blog, I’d like to ask you to name the Books You’d Unpack First. You know, those books that you couldn’t wait to unpack during your last move. The books that would get unpacked first as you christened your new space.
Several of our library staff members have already answered that question in their own way on Pinterest. Why not check out our newest pinboards for Liz’s Staff Picks and Amy’s Staff Picks and see what they chose? While I don’t know whether all of the books on their pinboard represent the entirety of the books they’d unpack first, I have a feeling these books represent a good start!
Now it’s your turn to talk back to us and tell us the books you’d unpack first!
All my favorites from when I was a kid have moved from place to place with me several times over the years! The Little House on the Prairie series, Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Secret Garden and To Kill a Mockingbird, just to name a few…
My cookbooks are the the first to be unpacked wherever I move. There’s something about having them around that instantly makes a place my own. The most loved (and most food-stained) include Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and a binder collection of recipes my mother put together. Treasured as these are though, the books I was most excited to unpack were piano books that had been put away for many years until I was able to afford to move my piano from my parents’ home in Pennsylvania. I grew up playing the piano and was so happy to greet books and play music that I hadn’t touched in a long time. As for reading, some of the books I love most include books of poetry like Billy Collin’s Picnic, Lightning and my collection of fairy tales and books about fairy tales.
Like Lisa, I would also go with some of my treasured books from childhood. I didn’t include on my Pinterest board my copy of Little Women, illustrated beautifully by Jessie Willcox Smith. I like to hang on to books that are special in some way – like the copy of Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood my friend Clare got signed for me, or books that are out of print, like the comics series Strangers in Paradise. I would never leave those behind in a move!
I tend to like big, epic novels, and 2 I always take with me are Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry and It by Stephen King. I need to see them on my bookshelf in order for a place to feel like home to me.
If I could fit all fourteen of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, they would be a must. I’d also pack three short story collections: 1. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman 2. Stranger Things Happen by Massachusetts resident Kelly Link 3. Under a Glass Bell by Anais Nin. For some non-fiction, Spalding Gray’s Impossible Vacation would be my pick. Of course, I’d need to bring a slew of comic books, too: all the current Buffy the Vampire Slayer books, the new Star Wars (by Brian Wood), and everything I have by Brian K. Vaughan.
In the far corner of my living room, beyond the heap of dolls, costumes, and games that my two daughters maintain with vigor, stands a 5-shelved bookcase. This bookcase, and the collection of poetry it holds, has traveled with me since college. From various bachelor pads, to the first years of cohabitation, to our current familial space, this collection has remained a constant and comforting presence.
I love poetry. I love the thrill each word exacts on its reader, the universal distilled into a singular image or a particular voice, and the shared mythology of the human experience. I especially revere the poets from the Modernist Era, whose works that so vividly captured a world in tumult crowd my shelves like trophies:
•Ideas of Order – Wallace Stevens
•Spring and All – William Carlos Williams
•Requiem – Anna Akhmatova
•Collected Poems – H.D.
•Collected Poetry – W.H. Auden
•Michael Robartes and the Dancer – W.B. Yeats
Also vying for space among these greats are collections from poets from post war America and beyond:
•Diving into the Wreck and The Fact of a Doorframe – Adrienne Rich
•Ararat – Louise Glück
•Ariel – Sylvia Plath
•The Arkansas Testament – Derek Walcott
•The Figured Wheel – Robert Pinsky
•Life Studies – Robert Lowell
I also unpack my childhood favorites first, like the Shel Silverstein poetry books (Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Light in the Attic, etc.) and then my all-time favorites, like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, followed by any “pretty” editions of books I have, like The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Bible, and Thoreau’s Walden.
If we ever move again, my e-reader and phone would be the first thing I would unpack as they will then have all these titles already on them. I only had paperbacks growing up and they are long mothballed. When I got my e-reader for Christmas last year, I added titles that I must have read and re-read over 100 times. These titles have moved with me no matter where I am as the words are old friends. The works and worlds of Anne McCaffrey are one place I love to visit over and over again. Restoree by Anne McCaffrey was one of the first titles I purchased for my e-reader. Then I added the Dragon Riders of Pern trilogy and the Harry Potter series (which I checked out from our library’s Overdrive Service actually and can again if I would like). For my son, I added many Encyclopedia Brown novels by Donald J. Sobol for nightly read outlouds and The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald. Books by Julie Garwood, Jayne Castle, Jayne Ann Krentz, Christine Feehan, Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Moon, Orson Scott Card, Timothy Zahn & Robert Asprin are some of the other authors I’ve added to the list as I’ve poked around finding out which of my favorites are now available in e-format. Not all of them will be available, but if I feel the need to read a copy of Dragon Singer or Ender’s Game, I know I can find a copy at my local library or through interlibrary loan.