The Book of Lifetime

One doesn't know, necessarily, when one meets the trip-action person in one's life. A good teacher, a flirt behind the dry-goods counter, a petty thief weilding a knife. Any one of a thousand chance encounters might be the chance of a lifetime. Or a deathtime. A lost girl in a blue gingham skirt and white pinafore hardly seemed a likely ambassador to a rosier future: still, stranger things had happened.
~ Gregory Maguire, from A Lion Among Men

 

I spent a happy hour at the local used bookstore today, walking the stacks with my head tipped to the right to read the spines. I wonder why people don't bump into each other more often in bookstores. I was using my store credit to pick up some of the books people have recommended to me on Facebook - and then losing myself completely. Once when I got off track, I was looking at poetry books, wishing I hadn't long ago given away my copy of the Complete Poems of e.e. cummings. What was I thinking?! And a friend recently asked to borrow my Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop, which I wouldn't lend because I just don't lend poetry books. They go out of print. So I was looking for Bishop to buy a copy for my friend and looking for Cummings to replace the one I let go and oh look! Baxter Black! I like him!

I feel about books the way I feel about people I meet: some are that "trip-action person" (in the quote above) who has a radical effect on my life. Dorothy Gale is as real to me as many people I've met - maybe even more real - because I still remember her and I've forgotten most of the people I met when I was reading the Oz books. So re-reading Gregory Maguire's Wicked series has been like gathering with old friends and cracking up over the same silly things that always make us laugh. I'm in the last 100 pages of A Lion Among Men and I often laugh out loud, slap my forehead, say, "Damn! He's good!"

When I friend* gave me a Kindle a year ago, I fell in love with reading all over again. I had grown complacent about books, the way couples, I guess, can become complacent with each other: the magic dims, the excitement dwindles, and what had been interesting becomes stale. I would read parts of a book, lose interest, wander to the another book, always hoping that this one would get my engine started again. It took an electronic device to thrill me with a story, and so I read more books last year than I had in any previous years. I'll read the last of the Wicked series on my Kindle, and I can hardly wait!

When I was a kid, reading was a way to completely escape from my role as Big Sister to six younger siblings. I would crouch on a pile of shoes in the closet and read by flashlight and wouldn't emerge until I heard Mother calling me for the third time. (Three was the limit - after that I couldn't pretend I hadn't heard her and I'd be in deep doo-doo.) I read constantly through my early married years, when my daughters were babies (I could feed the baby in my arms with the bottle propped under my chin so my hands were free to turn the pages), and when they were pre-teens and I had to take them clothes shopping (I look up from my book long enough to see how the jeans fit or to make sure the shirt was appropriate for school).

Reading itself is a solitary activity. But then there is the sharing! I posted to Facebook about my intention to make 2012 a year of reading really good books, and I asked for suggestions. A gazillion people suggested books I'd like, and I'm having as much fun considering my next read and the one after that as I have actually reading the book. And isn't it great fun to talk to people about books? I'll talk to strangers in an airport about the book they're carrying. When I told another trip-action friend that I had just bought the book he recommended, he was very happy. We love to know that someone we love is reading a book we loved. (Got that?)

I invite more books recommendations. What are you reading? Why? And I highly recommend the Wicked series. Elfaba Lives!

 

*This friend is one of those trip-action people.

 

 

Comments

[Barbara Richardson]

Thanks for reminding me why I don't lend out books of poetry! Pretty much every other book is bound to leave my shelves for an interested other. My latest blog "Payback Time" dovetails with yours--how to post online reviews and thank the authors who've become great friends. Elizabeth Bishop is long dead, but we can introduce her to new readers with a review!
Thanks again, Barbara Richardson

[wisewebwoman]

I am currently reading The Other Hand by Chris Cleave, I feel you would really love it as I am. No plot can be revealed. It is extraordinary. No more will I say. I find my newly joined book club amazing as there are many of us and I can hardly wait for the next one as the discussions are so powerful and the varied perceptions stimulating.
XO
WWW
PS I read 64-1/2 books last year, I track my reading on the left side of my blog and do an annual post on the books I've read...

[Verna]

Ah! In the US, that book is called Little Bee. I'll try it. And thanks for the reminder about your book list on your blog. You are one prolific reader!