I use my books. It drives Victor insane. He’s the person who will scream “YOU MONSTER!” at a complete stranger if he hears the sound of a spine breaking, and most of his best comics are permanently sealed in hard plastic slabs, mostly to protect them from me probably.
I live on the other side of the extreme. My books are all broken backs and finger smudges and dog-ears. You can find the best parts of my most beloved books by just letting the book fall open naturally, because it will automatically open to the places it’s been read over and over.
One of my favorite things to do is buy old books from estate sales…those books that have been well-loved by people who have passed. I flip through and look for the ones with creases and notes written in the edges and signs of a life well lived. Victor doesn’t understand it, but reading those found books is like reading with ghosts, ones who eagerly point out their favorite passages or share their thoughts or questions in the margins.
It sounds wrong, but you can tell that I really love a book if I damage it thoroughly. I destroy it with my love. I shove it in pockets and carry it in purses and suitcases. I drip bathwater on the edges and get pollen stuck in the pages. I underline passages that remind me I’m not alone, and tuck receipts and slips of paper into places I need to reread. It is my opinion that a treasured book should not be kept in a box or wrapper. It should be used. And battered. And loved…just as much as the owner is, as they carry that book through their life. As they drag it through the rough spots. And as it drags them through the rougher spots. Whenever I finish writing a book I always hope to myself that this is the kind of book I hope I have written.
Recently someone asked me to autograph their copy of Furiously Happy and they were embarrassed to show me the shape it was in, but it made me so incredibly happy. I asked if I could take a picture of it, and I keep that picture with me to remind me that in some ways I’ve succeeded.
Today is #NationalBookLoversDay and so I’d love it if you would share a few books you love so much that they’re like a part of you.
I’ll go first. Ray Bradbury’s From the Dust Returned. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Your turn.
PS. My next book (You Are Here) is literally made to be written in, tacked to walls, shared and used. Victor is shuddering already. Leave a comment if you want one and I’ll randomly choose a few people to get free copies once they come out.
This is one of the things I detest about kindle books- THEY LACK SOUL. If I really love a book, I buy a physical copy and mark it up and love it. I totally get where you’re coming from.
At work yesterday a friend bought Furiously Happy for her book club. As she was speaking she had no idea about all the information you share here especially all the taxidermied animals and Beyonce!
I am glad I am not the only one who does this. Some of my books are so worn out. I do the same thing to my history magazines, read those cover to cover.
I would love your new book. Looks so very very cool!!
I will have to take a picture of a few of my well-loved books. I’m the same with mine. I love the cover on that one, though – I haven’t seen it before. Is it a special edition?
(It’s the special coverless edition. ~ Jenny)
Ernest Heminway’s Old Man and the Sea. and I also love the Sandman series.
My favorite books. Hmm. I do love Rosamund Pilcher and Maeve Binchy. I have read Tara Road and The Shell Seekers more times than I can count. And Harry Potter. Every, single one of them. And The Far Pavilions. I’ve had to buy multiple copies because mine fall apart.
I am a book hoarder. I treasure them and treat them with kid gloves, which is why I have electronic versions of my Harry Potters and reading copies of my other favorites. My book shelves are shrines.
I spilled something (I forget what – probably wine) on my copy of Furiously Happy and was mortified and then was like “eh. My book. I can spill if I want!:”
I don’t lend my books to people who dog ear pages though – ruin your own books, monsters! :p
Some of the books that I really love, that get me through tough times are:
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman, The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx, The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood, The Collected Auden, poetry by W.H. Auden, Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. The Tiffany Aching Series by Terry Pratchett.
Is it strange that I sometimes destroy with love, but sometimes I’m Victor?
That’s what my copy of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened looks like. I feel better now. And I can’t wait for the next book!
I have a mass market paperback of Jane Eyre that my senior English teacher gave me. It’s been through the ringer and scotch tape is holding it together. I have newer copies but this paticular copy means alot to me.
Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas, The Language Archive by Julia Cho, and Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. I realize two of those are plays, but they’re in absolute tatters now that I’ve read them so many times over the years. Also Grimm’s Faerie Tales, the spine doesn’t exist on my copy anymore.
That is a beautiful book! I was gifted a used D&D Players Guide by my new DM, and he felt bad because all the pages are falling out. I’m so glad to not have a new book because I’m going to ruin it anyway.
I’m firmly in the “cherish and never mar” camp with Victor, but I like your “reading with ghosts” analogy for estate-sale books. I just can’t personally handle my own books so roughly (especially paperbacks, for some reason.)
I suspect my OCD is not only in the driver’s seat on this issue, but has locked the doors and keeps pulling away so no one else can get in the car.
Madeline L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I read that book so much that I cannot if I tried to read my original copy one more time I don’t think I’d be able to tape it back together.
Play it as it Lays. Joan Didion. Simple perfection.
I love your books, and I am waiting for the next one(s)! I hope your days are looking up, it’s been a rough year for many folks, and I love reading your blog to feel a little less like the world just makes me feel small all by myself. at least I’m not alone!
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I buy every used copy I find. I feel like I’m rescuing it.
I love the Harry Potter books…all of them. The fisrt book I re-read was The Secret Garden. From age 8 to about 15, I would read it at least once a year; usually during Christmas break.
I’m somewhere between you and Victor. I haul my books everywhere but I don’t write in them. I write passages in a separate journal. It’s the neat freak in me.
I try to by two copies of books I love, one to keep and the other to wear the soul out of. Love finding old beat up books in the used book store because You can tell they have been loved. Just like people, the more scars the more story there is (hope that makes sense).
I’ve read and re read The Chosen about a million times.
I also just lent out my copy of Furiously Happy to a friend’s girlfriend who is suffering from depression. She needed it more than me, I hope if it comes back it comes back worn with love 🙂
I’m on Victor’s side YOU MONSTER!
Ellen Hopkins’ Crank series. I like to read books about broken people.
I’m super excited about your coloring book. I’m going to color the crap out of that thing.
I book is not a book unless you can feel the pages.
I would love a copy! Just throwing my hat in the ring.
My most beloved book is As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann. It’s about a man who flees his wedding for spoilery reasons and takes up with Cromwell’s Army, where he falls in love with a fellow soldier. It’s gorgeously written and romantic and utterly heartbreaking and infuriating, because even though Jacob (the main character) does some truly horrific things, I kept wanting him to be happy and then had to take several moments to admire the kind of masterful writing that would make me root for someone who (spoiler) and (spoiler).
I want one, please! I’m your biggest fan, woo ha ha ha ha! Just kidding, I’m not a stalker. I just discovered your blog, and I love it! I work as a counsellor and am also a creative writing student. I feel like I’m well deserving! If not, thats OK. I wish you lots of success with your book. Looking forward to your updates. Hugs! I’m Canadian.
My grandparents notated, dog-eared, wrote research they’d thought to make. There are newspaper articles and poems and letters stuck in their books. I love reading a book & knowing what it made my grandmother think. Once, my uncle lent out a book to a neighbor by a relatively well-known author & the neighbor came back almost immediately with it because there was a letter from the author inside it. (My grandmother wrote to authors, deep thoughts on what they’d written, questions, research. And would often end up in a conversation a dozen letters deep.) I love these books, love them. Although I only have two of my grandmother’s books, they’re treasures.
I do the same with my books. (Everyone’s been warned.)
My favorite books are probably the Harry Potter series, but that’s probably just because my husband read them all to me over the course of the first year we were together. we would finish each day with a chapter or two. My next favorites are Sherlock Holmes and Miss Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Chldren…
Gaiman & Pratchett, Good Omens. We’ve destroyed one copy – despite being very careful with it! It’s been reread that many times. Pratchett’s Small Gods gets a lot of love too, as does Monstrous Regiment. And when I’m feeling particularly useless and/or vulnerable, Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn gets pulled out and certain sections reread.
I would love a copy of You Are Here! Even though I already pre-ordered…nothing wrong with sharing!!
I don’t like the new “electronic” book craze. I love the pages, cracking open a new book, the smell of a book! And of course my stack of crazy bookmarks!!
Some of my favorites are Pippi Longstocking, The Outsiders, and Outlander.
My favorite book (other than your books) is Persuasion by Jane Austen. I read it over and over and I dropped my copy in the bath so many times it finally gave up and disintegrated. So now I only have a Kindle copy. I also pick up Jane Eyre and read it from wherever it opens to at any given time and then put it down and pick it up again some other day. But honestly, lately, I have been reading Furiously Happy over and over again. I finish it and start back at the beginning. It has helped me a lot in the last few months. I thank you for that. It has pages bookmarked so I can come back to the parts I really need when I really need them. Oh, and I also have one other book full of post-its. It is So Anyway… by John Cleese.
The Golden Book of Fairy Tales, illustrated by Adrienne Segur. Republished in the past decade under this name. I think it used to be called the Blue Fairytale Book when I had the earlier edition from 1958. An absolute piece of magic in every way. I have no doubt that this book has inspired many artists and writers over the decades!
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Belgariad and Malloreon series by David Eddings, Harry Potter, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened. I could go on and on, love books!
There’s nothing better than a beautifully loved book, especially when you can share it with another. Some of my most treasured possessions are a set of Louisa May Alcott books that were my grandmother’s, that have my mother’s crayon scribbles on the first inside pages. They’ve got my family’s fingerprints all over them, and I can’t wait to pass them on to my niece when she’s old enough to appreciate them.
For me, some of my favorite books are A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The Stand by Stephen King. My Harry Potters. And so many more.
And I would love a copy of your new book.
People Who Say Goodbye by PY Betts, an independent 21st century woman stuck in the early 1900s. Hard to find, but worth the search.
I love how it looks like the title is bursting out of that page! I agree… there is something amazing about well-loved physical things – I weave, and I was so excited to see when a friend showed me a woven piece that she had worn down to tatters. She was all sad that it was “ruined” – but I felt excited that it had actually been loved so much it was worn out.
My favorite book is always the next one I’m going to read!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith — a tale of a girl who also loves books.
The term for that (at lest the marking-up part) is ‘marginalia’. I tend to think it’s a sign that you got so much out of the book that a bit of it splashed back onto it.
Love, love, love To Kill a Mockingbird. Also Mark Pryor’s Hugo Marston series(he lives in your neck of the woods!), and Anthony Doerr’s Four Seasons in Rome.
I wear out books, too.
A few I’ve worn to bits: Harriet The Spy, A Wrinkle In Time, Little Women, The Shell Seekers, and Firefly Summer.
This is so me. Maybe not the covers off, but I definitely love my books hard. The best ones have food and water spilt on them. Some of them I’ve even written in. The most loved book I have ever own is White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Some margins are completely filled and entire pages highlighted completely and I never used it for a class. 🙂
I totally encompass the both sides of this. I will buy a copy to love and if I really really love it, I will buy a copy to cherish untouched. I don’t buy a lot of books twice. Most I love only enough to well-love. Yours (Harry Potter, Bibles, The Time Traveler’s Wife), I buy twice.
Faves–Maria Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Children of God, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Stephen King’s The Dark Half and Dark Tower series, plus whatever I happen to be reading at the time (currently, The Dresden Files).
A long way gone by Ishmael Beah
I do this with sheet music. You can tell the ones I love because they are literally fingerprinted to the point of being stained and usually falling apart as well. Jenny, I love your transparency and your willingness to blog during the dark times. It’s a real gift to others, though I’m sure it doesn’t feel like it.
OMG I thought I was weird for buying previously loved books! I get so excited when I find a note written inside. Glad to hear it’s not odd….or at least not odd with us.
I would LOVE a copy of You Are Here! Thank you for all that you do 🙂
Jenny, you are a Godsend. Your writing is so many of the good things in life: pain, laughter, fear, embarrassment, truth. You are refreshing and I am so grateful to journey through life with you. We are all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. Thank you for being brave enough to open yourself up to the world. You are the hero I needed! Much love to you!
-Angie <3
I would love a copy of your book. I can already smell it being printed. Can’t wait to write in it 🙂
I work in libraries and have become almost obsessive over repairing and taking care of books. Yesterday I was reading the first Harry Potter to my 7year old and I was thinking about how tattered it had become, but I was thinking of all the times I have read it, and read it to my husband and my children, and my oldest reading it to herself, and I felt like it deserved some tangible proof of all that love.
I would love a copy, especially because I live in Brazil and won’t be able to buy it so soon 🙁 Answering your question: Bellweather Rhapsody (if you don’t know it, you should; Kate Racculia based one of the characters in David Tennant – and then freaked out when she saw my pictures with him) / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy / 1984. Also, I’m reading my own book, thanks to you 🙂
I have a tattered copy of Alice in Wonderland from my childhood, I still read it when reality is just too taxing and I need to escape for a while. I would lovingly and artistically destroy your new book as well 🙂
Favorites: The Blue Sword (anything by Robin McKinley, really) and The Hobbit. I can wait to read/color/love your new one.
I desperately want your book, as a reminder of all the places I am when I’m there.
And books I cannot get enough of…
“Pawn of Prophecy” by David Eddings
Lamb” by Christopher Moore – or really, all of his books.
“A Wrinkle In Time” – Madeline L’Engle
“Matilda” Roald Dahl
I used to read in a tree, so my childhood favorites had bite marks from me climbing the tree with the book in my teeth, and all sorts of creases and smudges from being tossed to the grass before I climbed down. The Secret Garden, Matilda, and Treasure Island eventually fell apart completely.
So excited for the coloring book! Glad you’re sharing your art with us.
I would LOVE your new book
S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. I love both of your books so much I have them in hardcover, ebook and audiobook form. Mister God, This is Anna. I’ll probably have to get at least 2 copies of the coloring book because one will end up getting lovingly deconstructed.
Also, I got my Mom both of your books, which she has read… and now she’s apologized to me for all the times she told me I was “weird on purpose” when I was a teenager. I tried and tried to tell her it was the way I was hard-wired and she didn’t get it… until she read your books. So, much love for FINALLY bringing some understanding of the strangeling I am to my Mom.
Stiff: The curious life of human cadavers by Mary Roach. This is my most loved book. I laugh. I cry. I laugh some more. I recommend this book to everyone. And one of the footnotes was a reading at my wedding (my husband loves me and gets me and agreed it was a perfect fit for our wedding).
And between my husband and I, we’ve killed a couple of the Wheel of Time books (books 1 and 2) from reading and lending.
But I’m with Elizabeth, if you dog eat my pages – I will cut you! And then give you a homemade bookmark to teach you how to properly read books!
COLORING BOOOOOOOOK!!! I want one!
Also, I’ve always loved the Clan of The Cave Bear by Jean Auel, EVERYTHING by Neil G, Wyrd Sisters from Terry Pratchett. Brené Brown. And anything by you!
I’m nicer to books now,or maybe I just buy hardcovers more often, but when I was in middle school I loved my paperback copy of Black Beauty to death! I even made it a new cover out of construction paper. Yes I still have that copy. And other well loved books. I would love a copy of your new book.
Not sure why, but for some reason I always go back to Under the Tuscan Sun. I dream of being in her place and seeing the things she describes and eating the foods she cooks. I love the book so much that I refuse to watch the movie. Too many changes to make it “Hollywood”.
I get where you are both coming from. I usually end up buying 2 (or more) copies of the books I love – one to sit pristinely on the shelf – and one to read the hell out of.
My parents think you should read a book once and never again. They tend to look at me like I’m nuts when they see how crack my book spines are.
Fav books run from Pride and Prejudice to Karen Marie Moning – Fever Series and of course Furiously Happy and Let’s Pretend this Never Happened!
I reread “Drawing Blood” by Poppy Z. Brite every year. That book and “Metamophosis” by Franz Kafka saved my life.
Just loaned a guide book to a friend for her trip to Seoul. I asked my husband if he thought we should put our name in it, hoping to get it back. No, he said, guide books are best shared, and used as often as possible, not hoarded on the off chance we’ll get back to Korea.
Love that sentiment.
Ooo! Pick me! I would love a copy of You Are Here. 🙂
American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Good Omens by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. We got the illustrated version of this and it is getting so much love in my house.
I’m somewhere in between you and Victor, I think. I love and cherish my books as much and more than just about anything, possibly excepting my pets and spouse. So I never… intentionally… damage them. And I do have quite a few that sit on my shelves, looking only slightly worse for wear than when I bought them. But then there’s my copy of The Giver or my Dark is Rising books, or any of the ones that have suffered the fate of making me love them enough to forget that I want them to be perfect. It’s like the old skin horse tells the Velveteen Rabbit, you’re only REAL when you’ve been loved enough that your fur has come off and your button eyes have been lost.
My favorite was my childhood copy of Watership Down, though. It came to me already heavily ‘loved’ and I didn’t much help. It lost its cover. I made it a new one out of construction paper. It eventually lost that one, too. Now it lives a much more careful life as its spine is going and I fear it will join my copy of Ivanhoe in being more of a puzzle than a book someday soon.
Dog ear not dog eat! Although if your dog ate my pages I’d probably be a little pissed off. And then laugh. A lot.
Forgot to say my favorite books are
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
And
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
I would love one. I think you are brilliant. Thanks for writing.
I love “The Blue Castle” by LM Montgomery and wore my copy out. So I found another copy in the same edition (very important that it matches the rest of her books). Went to shelve it and found…I had already bought a backup copy. I’m good for the next twenty years at least.
I keep most of my books in pretty good condition, but I’m going to be coloring the crap out of your next one! I could read Still Life with Woodpecker over and over again.
Loving a book so much that it breaks under your spell is why I don’t do ebooks. I like feeling, smelling, becoming part of them too. I love A Confederacy of Dunces, Charlotte’s Web, To Kill a Mockingbird (of course), The Goldfinch, both books by our own Jenny L., all the Harry Potter books ,anything by Elmore Leonard or Richard Price and too many more to even think about or try to list. I’m a poor-man’s professional writer (meaning, I write advertising and marketing copy for high-tech stuff), but words are my life and my love every day.
Oh my goodness! I love writing in my books, underlining my favorite bits, sometime writing
I have so many beloved books that look this way. Some of my favorites are by Anne Rice and Stephen King. I have to use a Kindle now to do most of my reading due to my hands hurting to much to hold a book for long but the love for losing myself in another world has never gone away.
I wanted to show a picture of one of my kids’ books–The Berenstain Bear and The Great Honey Hunt. It was originally a hardback book, but both covers are LONG gone. To be fair it was that way when we bought it at a used book sale at the library. And then my kids totally fell in love with it and I read it dozens if not hundreds of times to them. THEY DID NOT CARE that the covers were missing. The loved the heart and soul of the book, not it’s appearance. My kids are now 29 and 31. I am saving that book to read to their children someday and hope that they also can see the heart and soul of the book, and not just it’s looks.
My most well loved books are never on my book shelves because I lend them to everyone I know. Except my autographed copy of Slaughterhouse 5. Don’t get near that. I’ll cut you.
Books that I can’t get enough of:
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (which if all you lovely weirdos haven’t read go do it now- the main character can literally read her way into books aka our dreamland)
Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
Love a copy of your newest (and excitingly different) book. In a world of adders and subtractors, you are an adder (not like the snake, not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Cheers.
In the Company of Newfies. I no longer have my book and have no idea where it went. I think it got lost in a move during a divorce. One thing I loved about it was that my own Newfie had actually chewed on it. I keep looking for it but alas it has been years. This makes me want a new one.
https://www.amazon.com/Company-Newfies-Shared-Life/dp/0967853311
A new one I am discovering is called Buddhist Bootcamp. Its good stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Boot-Camp-Timber-Hawkeye/dp/0062267434/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470773429&sr=1-1&keywords=buddhist+bootcamp
I am like victor. I am obsessed with books and reading and I keep all of my books in perfect condition. They are my babies and I don’t let anyone else borrow them for fear of them being ruined. On the other hand, I do like reading books that have other people’s thoughts and notes in them because it’s interesting to read, just as long as those books aren’t mine!
A circle of quiet by Madeline L’Engle, Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by who else? , and The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. My all time favorite was Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe. I love bunnies, vampires, and terrible humor. I actually photocopied my library’s copy of Bunnicula back in the early 90’s with my mom’s copy machine. It ran out of ink. I still have the photocopy though. ;D
I have a copy of Swan Song by Robert Mc Cammon that has been taped back together multiple times since chunks of it randomly fall out while I’m reading it. Also a copy of The Shining that has a designer spine of checkerboard duck tape holding it together. ❤️
I read more than my friends and used to love saving my favorites for particular people, because I detest clutter and don’t like things to weigh me down. So, of course, my husband bought me a kindle so I wouldn’t have those extra things weighing me down. And I really do appreciate the thought and I like it (especially that I can read into the wee hours and not keep him up), but I miss passing along my loves to my friends. Not so much that I’ll go back to hard copies (nothing like forgetting your book at the doctor’s office and being able to pull it up on your phone and pick up where you left off – woo hoo!) but enough that it’s a little sad. No one really reads a book you recommend. But they did read the ones I gave them. 🙂
I really really need your coloring book. Like really. I will love it to pieces. 🙂
If you’ve never read Skallagrig by William Horwood please do, it’s been everywhere with me, it makes me laugh, cry, hope and dream.
Can’t wait for your next book!
Hey there, I’ve loved books ever since my mom made me take remedial reading classes as a young girl. She says she made a monster, lol. My favourite books are Cell and Dome by Stephan King and I will happily reread anything by Anne McCaffery.
I don’t reread books for some reason, even opough I like them and keep them … but I love the idea of finding well loved books at estate sales and reading them with the ghosts who owned them … sounds kinda creepy, but I like it!
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker, Little, Big by John Crowley, Dope by Sara Gran. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathon Lethem, The Cowardly Lion of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson and The last Policeman Trilogy by Ben H Winters
I’m pretty sure my copy of Flowers for Algernon gets rearranged every time I read it because it’s mostly loose pages now. And I’m not entirely sure if it ever did have a cover……
One of my favorite books is Douglas Adams’, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I really like the care with which Adams assembled his words, “just so.” I have a tendency to replace books that get too worn (heaven help me if they go out of print!). More often than not, I lend them out before I wear them out, then have to replace them… I’m lucky that I can do this. Hope your days ahead are bright, Jenny!
I would LOVE a copy of one of your new books! And I agree. I prefer to get books already battered, preferably with a name written in it so I can wonder about who they are (hope that doesn’t sound creepy).
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Too Much Temptation by Lori Foster (anything by her, actually!)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Furiously Happy by whatshername in Texas
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
I would love a coloring book, but I have pre-ordered one. If I were to win one from your blog, I would gift it to a friend that needs the therapy/support/laughs/calm.
I treasure books. And I use them gently. With care and affection. I may write in them, but I do so neatly. I may flag pages that I will refer back to, and dog-ears are fine, too. But I’d never destroy a book. I actually re-use books for art projects as well. Not the same thing at all. Respect the books!
I very much enjoy your books and your blog. They make me smile even on rough days.
And, yes, I’m looking forward to your new book, and I’d love to get one from you!!
I would love a copy of your newest book! One of my favorite books is The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. And most Dr. Seuss books.
My family do not understand this either. I like owning books so that they are mine and I can turn over the corners and love them. Whenever I move house they are the first thing to be unpacked because home cannot be home without them.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (I think I own 11 or 12 unique editions of this book now, all of which have been read), Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises are my all time favorites.I love them all so so much.
I couldn’t agree more!!! I have a bunch of my great-grandmother O’Bannon’s books. She always wrote in the fromt cover where she got it, from whom (if applicable), and the date (she did this on all her furniture, too)! I feel like she’s with me when I open those books!
My “go to” books = Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Trina Paulus’ Hope for the Flowers, and Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart.
I would LOVE a coloring book!!!
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
I love your book love, Jenny.
My copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I re-read every year, is shriveled from being dropped in the tub and bears random tea stains and chocolate smudges. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I was raised to love reading; our family tradition for generations has been to teach our young ones to read before sending them off to school (if they ever went), and we have always taken that to heart. Reading opens the mind, but also the soul, and I will forever be grateful for this lesson my mother passed on to me. That said, she also viewed books as sacred – probably a throwback from her mother who was raised in the Great Depression – and dog ears, broken spines, and stains were signs to her that we did not value or respect what she considered dear. While I like the idea of keeping things clean and beautiful for posterity, I have never been able to love and yet still preserve my books in pristine condition. I really secretly thought there might be something wrong with me, my irreverent nature gone too far or something. So thanks for the affirmation!
I know I can get a copy of a You are Here off the internet but I’m a local kinda girl. So I’m trying to get Changing Hands Bookstore to order a few in. It was one of your stops on your tour.
My favorite fiction: “Stranger at Killknock” by Leonard Wibberley.
My favorite nonfiction: “Le Ton Beau de Marot” by Douglas Hofstadter.
I’m a book-preserver – it really runs against my nature to do anything permanently damaging to a book. I will tolerate an author’s autograph; even that seems kind of sinful, but only a little, like taking the Lord’s name in vain by saying “Gosh darn it”.
“like reading with ghosts”. Makes me sad and happy all at once.
I try not to break spines because then pages come loose and then I lose them and then the 300th time I’m reading the book I wonder where did that one scene go where…and I realize I have lost pages. But I do all the rest though it is much easier to highlight and note using my Kindle. I sheepishly admit that I buy very few actual paper books. Most are electronic now
My 2 year old daughter carried around my copy of Furiously Happy because she was in love with the cover. I couldn’t read it with her in the room because she would take it from me. I’m so excited about the new book because I will be able to share and enjoy it with her.
I would LOVE a copy of your new book! And I agree. I prefer books to be already battered once I get them, preferably with a name written in it so I can wonder about the person (hope that doesn’t sound too creepy).
I have multiple copies of my favorites – you can tell where they come in my chronology by their physical shape. The more time I’ve spent with them, the worse off they are.
L.M. Montgomery – Anne Shirley and Emily of New Moon series
Madeleine L’Engle – any and all
Louisa May Alcott – again, any and all
James Michener – Space
I just cannot bring myself to write in my books, but I do use lots and lots of super sticky post-its for comments, pictures, prayers, and song lyrics.
the Maud Hart Lovelace Betsy-Tacy books, The Princess Bride, Frankenstein, Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, anything by David Rosenfelt (because, Dogs!)
David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day”. I read it for years through my parents’ (ugly, bankrupting) divorce, then brought it with me to college, then Belgium…then I started learning French! The second half of the book is mostly about Sedaris learning French, and I hadn’t even thought of it, but it became even better all over again. I met Sedaris a couple years ago and he signed my copy and gave me a little card. Then I went to France, with my book!
Jenny, I hope you’ve read 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, because she is pretty much you in a lot of ways, down to the book thing. If you don’t have it, I will get it for you–I’m that serious.
I have wept into more than one copy of The Return of the King. My original copy of A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle looks like a rat has been at it. I can hardly touch my Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide anymore–the pages are all falling out. It’s not that I’m purposely cavalier with them, but my books are my closest friends and I take them everywhere I go, and I am a bit clumsy at times. I have a few first editions and things that were given as gifts and items that I bought as antiques that I try to be more careful with, but if it’s something I love very much it’s probably going to show that love on its pages and covers somewhere.
Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy is a book I read at least once a year and have for years and years–my ultimate comfort book. I have multiple copies, worn and preserved and now there’s an audio version. So there is that. Also Robert Graves’ I, Claudius and Claudius the God. And many others. SO looking forward to being hard on You Are Here though I am usually fairly anal retentive about books….. 🙂
Oh, please include me in the randoms for a free copy of your book. It will go in the “gifts I’m not sure who to give, but I’ll know when the time is right” bag. Mine is already on order. Favorite book list must include Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. 🙂
I leant a friend a book a few years ago, and she comes to me a week later, almost in tears, because her young daughter had grabbed the book and tore part of the cover and wrote on the inside. She offered to buy a new copy and I just laughed. I told her it was a book, it was made to be loved and now I have a reminder of her and her daughter every time I read it!
a tree grows in brooklyn – i have the paper back copy i bought when i was 9 (and read and re-read over and over again.) i also have a hardcover edition given to me by my best friend. the paperback is 43 years old, the hardcover is 29 years old,as is the friendship.
all of the aubrey/maturin series (patrick o’brian) because they’re spectacular and so not what i typically read.
I adore old books. Especially ones with dedications in them. It makes me wonder about that pair of strangers that shared a love of books. I wonder if they both loved the book I’ve found and if they had long talks about it later. One of my favorite found books is Walk Egypt by Vinnie Williams. I highly recommend it to most everyone I meet. Another book I always recommend (though it isn’t one I found, but had to buy for grad school) is Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. It is a book I reread every time I feel like I can’t write. It makes me fall in love with words and storytelling all over again and reignites my own creative fire.
My granddaughter loves to color with colored pencils adult coloring books. I buy them for her all the time. This would be pedc for her.
I read so many books but buy only the ones I absolutely love. I have bought your books and reread them again and again. As a mother of children who suffer from anxiety and depression they are a wonderful resource.
Neverwhere, Sense & Sensibility, and the Discovery of Witches trilogy JUDGE ME IF YOU WILL. Also, I buy every book Lisa Kleypas writes, and they are my bubblebath reading. They go wonderfully with wine. Romance, Regency-ish era, smart women and men who deserve them. Good stuff.
And to the lady up there who xeroxed Bunnicula? You and I are soulmates. That was my favorite. I’d have let you borrow mine.
I have an adorable little (6x4in, maybe) hardback copy of Jane Eyre, that I keep in my purse. The poor thing is tattered. But it’s like the blanky a kid would carry around- it brings me comfort when I need it. I also generally have my kindle with me, but I agree with others- kindle books lack soul.
Years back, in college, I bought a used copy of “Tropic of Cancer” – when the professor asked me a question about a certain (graphic) section, I told him I had not been able to read that chapter, as the pages were stuck together. He never asked me another question all semester.
I really would love a copy of You Are Here…please..please..please.
My girlfriend borrowed my first copy of “Let’s Pretend…” Her kids thought she would enjoy reading it while in the pool. She was mortified to tell me what happened. I told her, it just showed how much she loved it. LOL!
Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Have read them dozens (x infinity) of times in the last 2 decades.
Furiously happy is wonderful. Would love you upcoming one 🙂
Oddly enough, my favorite book is “The Good Earth” which I first read as a young person and something about it called to me. I have multiple copies as I try to find the oldest copies I can. My original copy is falling apart, has a broken spine, dog eared pages and wet spots. It was years before I realized it was a trilogy. I read it at least twice a year.
I met you at a book signing in Wichita (moose hat) and I would love a copy of your new book.
Anne of Green Gables
Little Women
And to quote Little Women = “Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.”
I’d love a copy. Harry potter will always be a favourite. The sixth book in particular.
I will never not love Of Mice & Men or The Outsiders. Also, The Scorpio Races because such love between a young man and a killer sea monster horse. The writing is spine-tingling.
Today I got a shipment of my own books in. My first series. I love them while I’m reading them, but I always feel like they’re such crap after I finish one. I’m so insecure. This set launched my writing career. I am so proud/embarrassed.
Julie Edwards’s The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. I read it every winter to boost my lagging spirits!
I love Pride and Prejudice, for all its wit, humor, and love. The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor is incredibly visual and sexy. The Soulless series by Gail Carriger is another fun supernatural series with fantastic characters and lots of tea.
I have always loved books, but I treat them with more care than I do a crystal wine glass (probably because, well, wine) or porcelain… anything. I can’t think of what is made out of porcelain because people know better than to give me or allow me to hold things made out of porcelain. But the only books I have written in are college and grad school text books…. and doing that made me feel dirty. A broken spine should be the mark of continuous re-reads, not carelessness. However, it’s probably why I haven’t pulled my books out as much since my son has been born. He’s not even allowed paper pages of his own yet. …But I also haven’t been role modeling good reading habits for him because I’ve been protecting my books. If I always wait until he goes to sleep to pull out a book, how will he ever see how much joy it brings me? I’m going to take a page out of your book (figuratively, I mean–let’s not get crazy here) and try to see wear and tear as a badge of honor… and an excuse to go book shopping.
And my absolute favorite book to read is “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. I’ve read it over 10 times and discover something new each time. If you want to try it, it’s better drama than a soap opera and no movie can do it justice, but get a copy with a “Cast of Characters” in the front–trust me! After that, I would have to go with the original novel form of the “The Phantom of the Opera.” The ending is actually a bit creepy and when I finished I realized I was home alone (people DID say goodbye, but I didn’t really register it) and it was stormy out, I wouldn’t let my dog leave my side because I didn’t want to be alone. I also love Charles Dickens’ writing and story-telling, but his stories are always so sad that I end up melancholy for days afterwards and have forbidden myself from reading them until I am tough enough to can take it.
Little Women, anything Jane Austen and don’t judge me, but the Twilight books.
And I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (did I say LOVE) a copy of your new book. 🙂
I don’t even own a Kindle. My cookbooks are the same. If I love a recipe, there are notes and food smears and random grocery lists on the page. My favorite books are the ones I inherited from my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I love reading the inscriptions. It brings me comfort and continuity. And yes, I dog ear pages too. Books have been my best friends for my entire life. Yours is one of the greatest gifts I have. (Also I just love to open the pages and smell them. I think that’s probably weird. But you can’t smell history in a Kindle.).
Strands of Starlight -Gael Baudino (read repeatedly in hs). University yrs it was American Gods, and anything by Charles de Lint, esp Memory & Dream (magic, art, talking animals, you’d love it) Currently Im inlove with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. ITS SO GOOD ERMERGERD highly recommended. Can’t wait for the colouring book 🙂
Hmm books that became a part of me, in the ‘I can quote them word for word’ sense or the ‘they changed the way my brain worked so dramatically that I can’t ever read them again’ sense? For the first, most of Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels but primarily the watch books because I want to be Sam Vimes when I grow up, The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger, Howl’s Moving Castle and House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. For the second Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce, The Inferno by Dante, The Jungle by Sinclair. My physical books are well loved and worn though right now they are by and large in storage (and have been for several years as we wait for life to settle out so we can find our lifetime home). And I would love a copy of your new book by the way thank you for being awesome!
Yes, please. I would love a copy of your new book. I have just finished rereading the first two (definitely on my favorites list, along with most of what Rita Mae Brown has written), and am about to pass on your first to my first born with the please return this to me request. She knows I am trying to pare down my 5000 plus volume library (it’s so hard!) and will be surprised to learn that I want yours back! As for those who do not like kindle, I must say I was fully in that camp at first. But then someone gave me one. As someone with sleep issues, I often read myself back to sleep in the middle of the night and love the fact that the kindle is keeping my “place” for me while I doze. But for daytime reading, I’m still all old school. Thanks Jenny for this opportunity!
Mine are Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving and Watership Down by Richard Adams.
I’d also love a copy of your new book! Maybe a book that’s actually meant to be written in would be good for me. I’m definitely on Team Victor on that issue.
My favorite go to book is Dr. Zhivago. It has most everything I love in a book…
I just finished Bellweather Rhapsody and it is brilliant. Plan to stay up late. Anything by Pratchett or Gaiman is on the list. Have you read the Long Earth series? Our HP have all split. We’ve bought three copies so far. Money well spent. My Tolkiens are well-loved. I’m pulling a couple of new suggestions from the comments. Yay for excellent fans of excellent books.
I very much enjoy owning books so that I can turn the corners over and make them mine. If I move house they are the first thing I unpack because home can’t be home without them.
I mostly read fantasy (yay for escaping real life) my favourites include pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. Ergonomic by Christopher Paolini, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich. My all time favourite is A Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gouge it’s like a hug in book form.
“The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. I read it 14 times the first week I got it (I was a teenager). It’s held together with a rubber band. However my original Sandman comic books are in a plastic container in the basement. Not ready for my 8 year-old to find them yet.
Harry Potter – I don’t know how many times I’ve read them now, but still discover something new every time. And I love that my nephew and niece think while reading and make notes in their books. I never learned to do that and have to admit that I am a bit jealous 🙂
Part of me loves a pristine, new book. I feel bad about doing anything to take away that clean state. Except I like to highlight and read and re-read and sometimes my bookmarks are just whatever object is closes and that means bending the spine. I stack my books wherever there’s room. I carry them in my bag and they get beat up. It happens.
I would ADORE a copy of your new book! I’m rough on books I love as well (which is why I have Let’s Pretend this Never Happened in ebook as well as hardback because I didn’t want to mess up the one you autographed 🙂 ) As for books I love that are well worn, Anne of Green Gables, Wuthering Heights, Verses that Hurt, The Giver, and Alice in Wonderland.
My “go to” books are anything in the Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey. I can just pick any of them up, and open to a random page, and enjoy reading. I also love Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love, and have it all dog-eared and highlighted.
I would also love a copy of your new book when it comes out.
This is why I often buy 2 copies of my most beloved books. One to read to pieces and one to treasure.
My favorites: Isaac Asimov: Foundation Trilogy
Little Women
Wuthering Heights
Eight Cousins
The Merry Gentry Series (Laurell K. Hamilton)
Surviving Survival – Laurence Gonzales; Happy All the Time – Laurie Colwin; Trauma and Recovery – Judith Herman; The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy; The Shipping News – Annie Proulx; Animal Dreams – B. Kingsolver. I’ve had to buy replacements of each as they wear out.
I scribble in many of my books to mark things to remember but some I don’t. So I guess I’m like both of you. I too love to look over old books. One of my favorites is a copy of The New Garden Encyclopedia – the Victory Garden Edition (1943) which is full of someone’s garden notes and pressed flowers. Oh, and recently I found a tiny ledger from 1944 that was a man’s accounting notes. He included all his weekly budgeting which gave a surprising view of his life. It ended right before he shipped off with the Army. When I look over it I always hope he came home okay.
I loved seeing your book recommendations and those from other people! I’m always looking for new books to read so this is wonderful.
Thank you so much for putting your thoughts out there. I smile every time there is a new blog post.
I’ve listened to both of your books on audiobook and just love hearing you describe each story. I can’t wait for you new book to come out so I can color in it! I would love a free copy!
Replied with photo on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DepressedYogi/status/763106749708722176
I think I love you even more after reading this!!! I share that passion of finding old books that have told more stories than just the ink on their pages. There’s a certain feel to the pages and sound in the spine. I have so many “favorite” books, but the one I read most recently that really touched me was When Breath Becomes Air. I also love the magical world of Harry Potter! (but come on, who doesn’t?!) I would love a copy of your new book, You Are Here. Cannot wait for it tocome out!
I’m the exact way with my books and I hate borrowing from people who never turn down a corner! I love Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Warmth of Other Suns, all of the Outlander books, Harry Potter, and I love almost all of Anne Rice’s books, especially The Witching Hour and any of her books set in New Orleans. Now I want to go back and read some of these again! Thanks!
I totally understand the bathtub damage. Which is why I bought a Kobo H2O that could survive a dunking. Unfortunately it can’t withstand an accidental step on, so that only lasted 2 months.
For my favorite books:
Need to think: Anne Bishop’s The Others series, first book is Written in Red
Need to cry: Mercedes Lackey’s Collegiate series, reading about Mags always hurts
Need something dark: Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series or Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series or Keri Arthur’s Riley Jensen series
Need to laugh, sigh, fall in love or gave fun: Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changling series, Lynsay Sands Vampire books (the first 5), Shelly Laurenston/G.A. Aiken- anything she has written.
Don’t need the coloring book as I already preordered 2 of them.
I’d love love LOVE a copy!
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Tolkien. Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books. Loved so hard I’ve had to replace them multiple times.
I’m a combination of you both. I am careful of some of my books – signed first editions and such, but I also have copies that are read and loved almost to death.
I tend to take care of hardbacks and be less gentle with paperbacks..
Favourites include ‘American Gods’, pretty much anything by Diana Wynne Jones, but particularly ‘The Lives of Christopher Chant’ and ‘Dogsbody’, Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’, Susan Cooper’s ‘Dark is Rising’ series.
I recently had to replace my copy of Georgette Heyer’s ‘A Civil Contract’ – it’s been a heap of pages held together with elastic bands for a while, but now I’m missing about 2 dozen pages, so I have to get a new copy…
Peter Pan, which I reread every time I’m having a hard day, and The Exorcist, my copy of which is in 4 pieces. I have a Peter Pan tattoo on my forearm because it truly my favorite book. Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis is another one that I couldn’t possibly live my life without.
“extravagaria” by Pablo Neruda. It’s on its last legs and is full of dog ears (I have no shame). I once lost it and my wife felt bad so she bought a new copy, but it wasn’t the same. It never felt as good in my hands as my original copy. It was like when parents find the dead hamster and replace it with one that looks similar before the kid notices…but I noticed. I found the original during a move a couple years ago and it was like Christmas Day. I was so happy and so relieved to know it wasn’t gone forever because it’s irreplaceable to me.
Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. Alden Bell’s The Reapers Are the Angels. The Dark Tower series and The Stand, Stephen King.
I never leave comments, but I had to on this one. I am a bookseller, and books (even ones I don’t like) are objects of love and obsession. I love them as objects, the smell of the paper and ink, the deckel cut pages, decorated end-papers….Some of my favorites are The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making, a wonderful book by Catherynne Valente, and S., by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. S. is a facsimile of a stolen library book, complete with colored ink marginalia and loose inserts of letters, newspaper articles, postcards, etc., all in aid of solving a mystery about the vanished author.
Other than The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I love your books the best!! 🙂
Rift, by Liza Cody. And I would love a copy of your new book.
There’s totally Cheetos dust all over mine.
Sometimes the tattered pages contain the most memorable memories. Leonard Cohen’s “Beautiful Losers”, which I still consider a literary masterpiece.Sheldon Currie’s “Down The Coaltown Road” is one that is lesser known but I highly recommend it. He’s the author who wrote the novel turned into a film called “Margaret’s Museum”. Two recent ones I’ve started to wear out already are Carol Leifer’s “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Crying” and Sara Benincasa’s “Real Artists Have Day Jobs” are so epic as far as golden words of wisdom. I have writing and post it notes all over the pages of these ones.
Have a good rest of the day, week and beyond.
Whale Music by Paul Quarrington. Written in the first person, from the perspective of a broken, drug-riddled former rock icon who is full of grief and confusion in equal measure. Fractured in such a wonderful way that I re-read it every year or two.
As a kid, the “Story Girl” book by Lucy Maude Montgomery, and Trumpet of the Swan by I know not who.
Poirot books by Agatha Christie. I’m finally starting to collect them all — in second-hand paperbacks only. 🙂
The Black Cauldron series by Lloyd Alexander. (Yes, I know they’re actually the Prydain Chronicles.)
Humbug Mountain by Sid Fleischman.
Dragon’s Breath by E. D. Baker.
Asterix books! 😀
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh.
Brains vs Coffee by Ghoul Friday.
Avatar: The Promise books 1-3. (I forcibly had to stop buying Avatar books, as I can’t afford to buy a series! But they’re really well done.)
A variety of Eloisa James books; currently trying to hunt down my favourites second-hand, as they’re currently only on my e-reader.
Oh, too many! 🙂
I would also like to be put in the random draw, please. 🙂 Thank-you!
My copies of Bloom County Babylon and Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things have resided in the bathroom of every house I’ve lived in since I bought them. Tattered, falling apart and probably full of effluvia of the grossest kind and yet, they are always within reach when I really need them – my favorite history books.
I loved “The Help.” I had borrowed it from a friend and couldn’t put it down. This meant also reading in the tub. I was super embarrassed to return her book to her after I realized the damage the steam rising from my bath had caused, but I could not afford to replace it. My only hope now is that she read this blog and realize it was love that warped her once flat pages.
My books are my friends. They live on my book shelves, carefully dusted and displayed. I take them out sometimes and just hold them in my hands. I’ve learned wonderful and horrible things from books; some make me laugh, some cry.
David Eddings series’ The Belgariad & the Malloreon are my favorites because I read them to my son when he was about 12 years old. I’ve read them over and over again and love them just as much now as the first time. I even read them to The Viking just to get him hooked and then he finished them himself.
Cold Mountain is so beautifully written it’s like a song.
Anything from Margaret George and Sharon Kay Penman.
My lists go on and on and on. Show me a book and I’ll read it.
And I definitely want your new book so I can read it and keep it like a friend. :o)
A couple of my favourites are The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, and When God was a Rabbit, by Sarah Winnman.
I would love a copy of You Are Here.
I agree with the very first comment that said the thing they hate about Kindle books is they lack soul. Kindles don’t smell like books. They aren’t books. Anyway, some of my most favorite and destroyed books are books I’ve had since childhood, they are literally books written for children and teens and they taught me some important lessons that I sometimes find myself needing to go back and relearn.
I absolutely adore Ken Follet’s “Pillars of the Earth” and “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough. I have very well worn and loved copies of those books. And would love a copy of your new book because your current two books are definitely on my list of faves! They have been lent out to friends and well loved as well!
I’ve already pre-ordered, but I’d love one to share! I love Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann and any Robert Frost poetry book.
this is exactly why i have multiple copies of books.
my most loved are lamb by christopher moore, instructions by neil gaiman, one hundred years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez, a head full of ghosts by paul tremblay, and let’s pretend this never happened by, of course, jenny lawson. eventually i hope to have a poppet of each by lisa snellings. i already have my instructions poppet.
I love all kinds of books, My favorite author is Stephen King. However, a book from my childhood is called “Old Cat and the Kitten.” I loved that book and read it over and over until the it was tattered and torn. I recently found my copy of this book and read it to my children.
My copy of “The Great Gatsby” has been to hell and back. Partly because it was part of a designated reading assignment in High School, and I loved it so much I just decided to keep it. I put packing around the edges of the paper cover so I would stop fraying and ripping.
M box set of the Lord of the Rings is looking a little haggard too, but it’s a hardcover so it’s a little more durable. Only a little more though, I’ve had it for almost 15 years!
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
The Words to Say It – Marie Cardinal
Paula – Isabel Allende
The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
A few years ago, I took an altered book art class. At first, it felt like complete sacrilege to tear pages out of a book or glue and paint inside of it. Then it was totally freeing and gave me a way to show love to books that no one else wanted anymore. Now I use old books or old book pages in most of my art journaling/artwork. I always search for them at garage/estate sales or antique stores. My favorite find so far is the journal of a high school girl from the early 1940s. She drew in it, pasted newspaper clippings from events she was in, and wrote stories about her senior year in high school. That one I won’t tear apart or paint in, I cherish every single page.
I would absolutely love to get a copy of You Are Here if I’m lucky enough! I absolutely love both of your books and have helped me get through some rough patches. I sent a copy of “Furiously Happy” to my best friend who had a really bad bout of depression awhile ago and she absolutely loves it as well. If I had to pick a couple of my favorite books to share, I would pick “Silver Linings Playbook” by Matthew Quick and “Airborn” by Kenneth Oppel. Thanks for always being you, Jenny.
I love how you look for books that have been well loved. It’s fascinating what you can learn about a person that way. I’m a bit anal so I baby my books, plus I read a ton digitally so I try not to dog ear my nook. My fave books all include strong romantic elements, the more intense the better.
I’m with Victor on this… seeing/hearing people manhandle/womanhandle their books makes me cringe and shudder. I thank all the people in bygone days who took such good care of their literary treasures that I now own some pristine pieces of history… like my 1877 gilt-edged Author’s Edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetical works, signed by the poet himself. None of its pages are broken and weeping in pain and therefore neither am I.
My copy of Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Garden and Zora Neale Hurston’s Thier Eyes Were Watching God – my copies are from the 1970s, covers falling off, pages well creased – anyone who picks them up later will know that these two books were LOVED.
I love how you look for books that have been well loved. It’s fascinating what you can learn about a person that way. I’m a bit anal so I baby my books, plus I read a ton digitally so I try not to dog ear my nook. My fave books all include strong romantic elements, the more intense the better.
I love my books completely but I am also fairly careful with them. I was a librarian for nearly a decade and it made me a snob. 🙂 So if I adore a book, I also buy it in Kindle format so I can have it with me always, and my physical copy can remain pristine. I love Night my Elie Weisel, The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, The Stand by Stephen King, The Harry Potter series, obviously. And so many others. I own your previous two books, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the third. 🙂
I used to be very delicate with my books, and honestly, I am still really careful with my Harry Potter books, I guess so my daughter can enjoy them in the pristine condition I was able to enjoy them in, but whatever. But you’re so right about letting books show that they are loved. I’ve recently let some of my books go because, even if I’ve enjoyed them, I know I won’t read them again, so instead of moldering on my shelf, I’ve decided to let them be loved by others, and hopefully many others after that.
Jennifer Crusie’s Agnes and the Hitman; Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None; and Debbie Viguie’s Psalm 23 mysteries (slow-building romance plus character development means a definite win-win).
I used to treat my books with the utmost care. I let someone borrow one of my books and when they returned it all battered I was kind of upset. But one day, looking back at my book collection that one amongst the nearly perfect ones screamed, “I’ve been read! Look how awesome I am!” Now I’m a spine breaker, I keep the dust jackets on and let them tear because it makes me feel like I really read them.
I love to love on my books. Otherwise – what’s the point?
Books that are PART OF ME:
– Fox in Socks by Dr. Suess (it’s makes my daughter happy when I read it to her so I love it!)
– The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. These books have brought me back from the darkest of places. I consider them one of my most value possessions.
– Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
– To Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Kindle has its uses, but I need a book that I love to be held in my hands. I’m trying to write something here, but my cat is sitting on my foot and keeps staring at me. She’s creeping me out again. She’s never purred, just snorts loudly. It’s a weird sound.
Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. It’s fantastic and dark and a teeny bit sexy. I’ve read it so many times I’ve lost count.
This I Know Is True by Wally Lamb….I’ve caught my husband trying to throw it away on more than one occasion b/c it is so beaten and battered
I love it when a book is well worn from being read so many times. I have a paperback I got when I was in 4th or 5th grade called Missing Person’s League and I read it over and over, and then my daughter loved it too and also read it over and over, and now the cover is barely hanging on and all patched up with tape, and that just makes it even better. Now I read a lot of books on Kindle, but for books like yours that I know I’ll want to keep forever, I buy the real thing.
A few other books I’ve read many times: Tomorrow’s Children (a collection of 18 science fiction stories edited by Isaac Asimov); Shadow Castle by Marian Cockrell; Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass.
I would love to have a copy of your new one!
I love Little Women. And all of the Harry Potter books. And The Time Traveler’s Wife. And A Wrinkle in Time (for some reason!). And too many more to mention.
I also am a book hoarder. I NEVER give away my books for someone to keep but I love to lend my books. But I read them and sleep on them and travel with them. Yes, I am that person at work who walks down the hall to the bathroom reading so I can get an extra few minutes in. . .I am never without a book. I keep “spares” in my car and office even though I usually read on my Kindle now. Yup, I am addicted. 🙂
So, apparently we are the Velveteen Rabbits of books. I sleep, eat and bathe with my books. Almost all of my books are second hand and I love interpreting the tracks of previous owners!
I get the leather bound book smell and the feel of pages on my fingertips… But I LOVE my kindle. Especially now that I’m hiking (for 6 months on the Appalachian Trail). Carrying several hundred books weighs just as much as carrying all 3 of your books Jenny! (I wouldn’t dare to say which makes the bigger contribution to a happier society though😝)
I always love hearing about the differences between you and Victor. Cracks me up!
Yes, please! I can’t wait to deface your book! 🙂
I always struggle to think of the books that have touched me only because there have been so very many. Illusions by Richard Bach which I have read more times then I can count. Good Omens and American Gods. I was given the book P.S. I love you while mourning the death of my uncle and it allowed to sob and access the grief I was hiding inside me. So many books from so many different times in my life
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorites. I think it was the first dystopian book I ever read and it scared me by how real it felt. That was years ago and it’s more true now…sigh Happy Book Lovers Day!
I love the Harry Potter series and of course your books – BUT I have them in audio version – so it’s only my phone that gets tattered. I listen to sections over and over at times.
So – the books Mom and I loved going trough from thrift or antique stores were the cookbooks! (and I love bibles – ones with family trees in them but back to cook books) The cookbooks were loving cooks wrote their notes in the margins or book marked certain pages. Or there are recipe cards used as bookmarks – which is an extra bonus because you get a FREE recipe with the book! Novel IDEA! (pun intended)
Thinking about Mom is hard, very hard. 2 months and 17 days since she passed. 🙁
I’m not much for rereading books though one book that I read at least once a year is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. For some reason this book just makes me really happy. It’s like going on a vacation without having to go anywhere.
I do have books from my own childhood that I loved and which are falling apart from being read so often to my kids, one of which is Roxaboxen. I love that book so hard.
I can read a book and leave it looking untouched. I am a gentle reader. My father-in-law was a rough reader. Broken spines, turned down pages, notes in the margins. It used to make me nuts to read a book after he had.
But after he died and I stumbled across an old book of his and was able to read what he thought of it, to see what passages stood out for him, to have one last conversation about a book we both read? Well, it was special.
I love used and previously well-loved books too. I personally don’t buy a new book unless I know I’m going to read it over and over – I don’t do “one and done.” Consequently I have hundreds of soul-books, not just a few. But the first one I ever destroyed with use was All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. I upgraded to hardcover for the replacement.
Thanks for sharing your heart and soul with us, light and dark. You are such an encouragement! Can’t wait for the new book. Spring is a long wait away!
I’d love a copy of any one of your books. So far I’ve only read them from the library.
I’ve dived headlong into reading as an escape since my husband died. I couldn’t afford any other vices. I don’t really consider reading a vice…unless you do it to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. My library card is nearly warn through.
I find myself somewhere in the middle on treatment of books. I’m generally pretty careful with mine although I do crack the spines. It took me a while to be able to highlight stuff in college textbooks. I get the willies when I see arts or crafts done with used books. Even though I strongly believe in recycling and many of those old books would just get tossed or left to rot if they didn’t get a new life.
I recall reading about someone who would underline and write and make notes in the margins. And use a different color pen each time they reread. And that way they could see how their thoughts had changed, evolved or not as time passed. I like that idea. If I were going to write in books I hope I’d do something like that. 😉 I love the idea of ghost books. My grandma did a lot of cooking and her cookbooks all had cut out or handwritten recipes tucked in them. I have a couple of them. One has a big beautiful stove burn on the back cover.
As soon as you announced ‘You are here’ I lost it and jumped on my sleeping roommate to scream the news to her because she loves your books as much as I do. If I’m being honest your books are a major part of what has gotten me through the roughest few years of my life and I feel an awkward anxious kinship with you that’s hard to describe, but it gets me through life so who am I to question that. Anyways, other than your books, my favourite would have to be ‘John dies at the end’. I have a dirty, dog eared, creased, copy that’s been through hell and back with me. It’s my comfort book. If things are falling down around me I cling desperately to the words on the page and lose myself for a little bit in the most ridiculous story I’ve ever loved. I’ve read it nine times now with no sign of stopping. I’ve also read your books 4 times, and I’m getting my sister a set for her birthday because I know she’ll undoubtedly find you as endearing as I do <3
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. I highly recommend it to anyone who’s struggling with grief and depression and loss. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Sabriel by Garth Nix.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Alice in Wonderland, Th Peculiar Miss Pickett.
Part of me? Danielewsi’s House of Leaves. Greenes It Happened in Boston? (yes the ? is in the title). Everybody Needs a Rock by Peter Parnall, Dissapearing Dwarf and the others in the Cheeser series by Blaylock, I Want My Hat Back, byJon Klassen, Possum Magic, by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas, and McX; a Romance of the Dour. My favorite because it is so good I can’t read it. Every time I try I get the chilly quivers so hard I have to save it for later. Deathbed maybe. And not to curry favor, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened changed my life. At current count I’ve given it to/recommended it to 106 people (I’m a bookseller so it’s easy). Thank you.
I was just reflecting on how I use my books as I purchased yet another set of the David Eddings “Belgariad” series. All my copies are falling apart as they have been so well loved. Books are meant to be used, read, and loved.
Little Women. The Shining. The Dragonriders of Pern series. heart flutters
I LOVE your view on books. I too agree that books are made to be devoured, used, underlined.
“The Changeling” by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, “Anne of Green Gables” by L. M. Montgomery, and “Clan of the Cave Bear” by Jean Auel. I don’t enjoy messing up my books; it just happens. Would love to have your next book.
At first glance, I thought you said, “I use my boobs.” I don’t know if that’s true, but that could make for a blog post that’d get even more reads than usual! 🙂
I love the idea of this book so much, it makes me want to cry (which is appropriate since your first two books had me in tears, albeit from laughter). I’ve been having a bit of a struggle in life lately. I moved abroad a year ago with my partner and the effects of not being able to get a job, struggling with a new language and relating to natives, and being so far away from my people has heightened my already shitty anxiety to the worst it has ever been.
Prior to moving, I hadn’t needed my meds for months and now Im back to relying on them just to get my mind to give me peace for 5 fucking minutes. Needless to say, I hate that I’m back here. As most anxiety ridden people do, I’ve been seeking alternative methods and strategies to keep my mind and hands busy….and like most anxiety ridden people, have had a mixed bag of success and failures.
Coloring therapy has been on my radar, but it’s difficult to find something that inspires me, or simply, that I can relate to that isn’t overly flowery and upbeat. Upon seeing the previews of your new book, I knew I had finally found what I’ve been searching for. Your pictures and designs are some of the most beautiful and unique I’ve seen. Combine that with the fact that your message is something I’m able to connect with and make sense out of, I feel like I’ve found just what I need and I can’t wait to order it.
I was raised in a “Do NOT damage books!” house and then school. Dog-earing was about the worst possible thing that I could imagine. As I grew and became a grown-up, I realized that they were mine to do with as I please and since then I’ve been folding, penciling, and loving my books with abandon. And I love to buy old books. My favorites still have the stickies and the receipts in them from their previous homes.
Also, I love that they didn’t bring a “clean” copy for your autograph. I probably would have 🙂
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer ‘Anya’, JD Salinger ‘Nine Stories’, Betty Smith ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’. I would like to add Jenny Lawson ‘Let’s Pretend This Never Happened’ but I don’t want you to thinki I am sucking up in hopes of getting a free book…that book helped me get through a tough time and made me feel like there is someone out there who gets my sense of humor! It is so hard when you say something meant to be ironically funny and people just stare at you like you are weird as hell.
Gone With the Wind, The Thornbirds, and my childhood favorite The Three Little Puppies.
My “destroyed with love” books are those from my childhood, which I re-read often. 101 Dalmatians (totally tattered/taped/held together with paper clips and dreams), the Little House books, Little Women and Champion Dog: Prince Tom. I also spend a lot of time with Roald Dahl’s Omnibus: Perfect Bedtime Stories for Sleepless Nights.
These days, I tend to check out books from the library or if I do purchase a book, I’ll donate it to the library because I’m trying to save money and avoid building Mt. Clutter.
I don’t know how to create a list of favorite books so I’m going to mention some favorite authors:
Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Alice Hoffman, JRR Tolkein, JK Rowling, John Irving, Christopher Moore, Tom Robbins – and so many more.
I live in a half kindle, half real book world. I haven’t completely committed to the Kindle, but have completely run out of space in the house for any more real books. It’s a conundrum, that’s for sure.
That photo… I detect definite teeth marks! Beloved book. Beloved pet. Beloved interactions, and collaborations. This would make me cry happy tears if it were my book. It’s about to make me cry happy tears for you. DAMMIT JENNY QUIT MAKING ME CRY! <3
My most beloved book might be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which actually broke into a bunch of pieces because I re-read it so much. My first copy of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is also super battered cause I would carry it around everywhere to ward off anxiety when I started college. Now I have that copy, which is the one people borrow, and a new one. I would love a copy of You are Here! I will probably eventually buy it but it could take a while because I live in Mexico.
Whenever I am trying to remember that I can choose my own path in life, I reread the DragonSong, DragonSinger, DragonDrums trilogy (the three young adult targeted books from the Dragonriders of Pern series). My Dad gave them to me when I was 11- they have his happy birthday message and my scratch and sniff stickers still in them, 31 years later. I let my son read them and a new tear appeared in the cover of one and I almost cried.
Thank you. Pondering this question is going to have me smiling all day. Cheaper by the Dozen, for sure. I cried when I saw the car that was like theirs at the Pierce Arrow museum. And probably ended up a homeschool parent partially because of this book. Wild About Books, which I can recite. I had been a picture book nerd even before kids. Otherwise I use the heck out of my library. Hmmmmmm.
I drive my husband crazy by buying the saddest copies at Half Price Books instead of brand new ones. I live them to look loved, and be loved. Plus I’m just going to toss them in my purse or drop them in the pool so they might as well not start out too pretty.
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Stephen King’s IT & the Stand, Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently — probably my roughest looking, best loved books.
I’d LOVE a copy of your new book. I’ve read both your others, it’s one of the few books that made me laugh out loud. Once it was rather loudly in bed, I pretended to be choking so my husband wasn’t mad that I woke him up laughing!
Some of my favorites include: the golden compass series by phillip pullman, sabriel by garrg nix, the english patient by michae ondaatje, nos4a2 by joe hill….
I’d love a copy of your new book! Cant wait to experience it and make it well loved.
I want one, please
I’m really enjoying Elena Ferrante’s 4-book series.
My wife has always been the book lover. I am just a book “cover” lover. They usually draw me in. However, your books are the only one’s I’ve read front to back and completely recommended. I think my wife and I can enjoy your next book and be creative together, draw in the pages, and experience your words as one.
My copy of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is the one I’ll carry around forever, (thanks for writing it) to keep my well worn copy of Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott company.
I don’t know if I can really contribute a favourite book, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get in line for a chance at a few copy of your next one! I think it’s fair to say that I fall somewhere between the two extremes of you and your husband. I wouldn’t go about writing in a book(unless I thought it needed a thorough critique), but dogeared pages and cracked spines are just part of use, and books are meant to be read. Basically, take care of your books but there’s no need to treat them like they’re made of china.
Of course, coloring books are intended to be the exception to the rule, but I still tend to photocopy the images anyway. Plus, then you can color then again later, if you want to!
The Prince of Tides. I wore out several copies, and when I went through a period of time when I was homeless, I stole one from what will remain an undisclosed library – I had nearly nothing to my name and it was a thread of a lifeline to normalcy. It got left behind one time when I had to move quickly, and I cried more for that book than for any of the other material things I lost.
Now I have a copy that lives on the top shelf of my bookcase, and when I need to connect with my life’s constants, I pull it down and read a few pages.
“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
I love the look, feel, smell of books…new & old. I loved book stores & libraries where I would spend hours carefully choosing my next read. Unfortunately, because of health problems I had to switch to a Kindle Fire if I wanted to continue to read books. Which I did. I miss real books and will be buying a select few to carry with me thru thick & thin, those will be your books, Jenny! They will get read the old fashioned way, if it takes me the rest of my life to do so! They will have a special place in my home with the other books I have read dozens of times…such as the Harry Potter series…I have your books on my Kindle, audiobook and will soon have the real books! My best friend pre-ordered You Are Here for me for my 50th birthday so I will have them all, so far😘 So your books will be with me forever! When I can hold & read the real book I will be reading that, if I need something easier to hold and larger print, i’ll switch to my Kindle, and during those times when I just can’t do either…I have your wonderful audiobooks to listen to! Yes, I love real books, but for those days when I can’t use them, I thank my lucky stars that I have my Kindle or I would have missed out on the best books and writings on the planet! THANK YOU JENNY LAWSON!!!
I read in the tub. And the pool. So a lot of my books have water stains. I used to eat a lot while reading but that got to an unhealthy place (thus the reading while submerged became more prevalent) so a lot of my books have crumbs and chocolate stains. I’m also a dog-earer.
So many favorites, too many to list. Fictional characters were my childhood friends, more than most of my real childhood friends. I think I base a lot of my parenting on the moms Madeleine L’Engle wrote.
I LOVE this and it makes me feel so much better about the choice I was just agonizing over about whether to take Furiously Happy with me on my short weekend beach vacay/world escape. And it’s signed by you so I was extra agonizing.
I have a set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books that is older than I am. I read all of them each at least once a year–and many parts of ones more than that. They are worn looking, but not yet falling apart, like me.
Due to waaay to much work I do mostly audiobooks. They stay unharmed no matter how many times I plough through them. I like the books by Elisabeth Gilbert and Brene Brown. Each great story tellers in their own right…
Duct taped and dogeared! Some books are meant to be devoured. 🙂
I don’t know if I can really contribute a favourite book, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get in line for a chance at a few copy of your next one! I think it’s fair to say that I fall somewhere between the two extremes of you and your husband. I wouldn’t go about writing in a book(unless I thought it needed a thorough critique), but dogeared pages and cracked spines are just part of use, and books are meant to be read. Basically, take care of your books but there’s no need to treat them like they’re made of china.
Of course, coloring books are intended to be the exception to the rule, but I still tend to photocopy the images anyway. Plus, then you can color then again later, if you want to!
I love Patrick Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear.” Also, his novella; “The Slow Regard of Silent Things,” which puts me in that space where you know everything was made of nothingness, but the nothingness shows through kind of thing. Some guy wrote that to describe being in a Zen state of.mind.
Also, Neil Gaiman’s the OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE.
One of my favorite, and most abused, books is actually series: “The Guardians of the Flame” series by Joel Rosenberg (all 10 books). I’ve read them many times over. I also have a tattered copy of “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien that’s been through a lot. I’d love to win a copy of your new book. 🙂
I’d LOVE a copy of the new book! Maybe it’ll help get me out of this funk and get me to start working on my own stuff again.
My three favorite books, the ones I read every few years, are “The Stand” (the extra long version) by Stephen King, “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Heinlein, and when I simply need some absurdity, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” by Adams.
I think I may finally need a new copy of that last one. My circa 1980 paperback has seen better days. I MAY get one more read out of it before pages start falling out 😉
AND OF COURSE YOUR TWO BOOKS!!! GOES WITHOUT SAYING. BIG CYBER HUGS, SUE
Now We Are Six by AA Milne, RiverWord by Philip Jose Farmer and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern… to name a few.
My favorite story of all time is in the book “The Way of the Wolf”. The story is “Barrington Bunny” my mother used to read it out loud when she was learning to speak English. The book came from a church sale and is actual a religious book of sorts. I’ve had the book since the early eighties, the dust jacket is gone, the cover is best up and the pages are tear stained but it is more valuable to me than anything.
My copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. I started reading the series when I was Eleven, and very much related to the story of the lonely eleven year old. I’ve had that book nearly twenty years, and read it so many times the spine is broken, and pages are falling out, but I can’t bring myself to replace it because it has been so loved.
Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. As someone with some neurological problems, paper books are often my refuge from blue screens
Reading your post, I was immediately reminded of Helene Hanff’s 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD. So great. Love you!
This. This is glorious. #authorgoals
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me. Robb White’s The Lion’s Paw.
I would love a copy that I could send to my niece in the middle east. They don’t have the colouring books there and she would adore it. She is 12 and struggles with anxiety and self doubt and I want to try help her see that she is perfect just the way she is. Also have you ever thought about compiling some of your blog entries into a book? Kinda like a you’re – not-alone- help book that people can read when they are going through tough times to remind themselves they aren’t alone and cheer them up with funny anecdotes like the shop clerk that may have been snacking on dog treats. My favourite books tend to not be heavy, literary tomes and sometimes it’s embarrassing to say that to people because then they think you are an airhead.
Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley” may always be my favorite, but I also adore Frances Mayes’ “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Bella Tuscany”, and “A Year in the World.” The worlds blend into pictures in my head, and I am Found in Italy.
Yes please sign me up for a Jenny’s New Book Lottery 😉
WTF? I POSTED A COMMENT ABOUT PATRICK ROTHFUSS AND NEIL GAIMAN AND THEY DIDN’T S STICK. NOW I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SPOONS TO RETYPE IT! IT’STILL ALL MY HUSBAND’S FAULT! SUE
Oh, and I’d love a copy of your new book ❤️
I read Good Omens at least once a year. It always fills me with glorious delight. It was signed by Terry Pratchett. I just hope that it hasn’t completely fallen apart by the time I find Neil Gaiman somewhere and get him to sign it, too.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – cover fell off and pages are falling out so it’s held together by a rubber band. My husband is like Victor, so out of necessity I try harder than I used to so as not to push him over the edge. Thank you more making me feel much less guilty about actually USING my books 🙂
I want one to tack on my wall!!!!!
i can’t stand to mess up my books! i can see where you’re coming from, but i’m just not that way. i love the e-book revolution.
some of my favorite books? that’s a tough one! i guess i’d have to say Siddhartha, White Oleander, and the Dante Valentine trilogy.
i’d love a copy of You Are Here. i’ve been meaning to pre-order it, but i just don’t have the funds rights now!
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and I’m not just saying that! I adore your soul, and I adore your book. I started reading Furiously Happy, but it got ruined, like really ruined, so I’m found to order another one. My friends and I have a really strange problem. We read your books slowly, like really slowly, because we don’t want them to end!
Oh wait…sorry…It did post! I suck at the Internet! Sti), it would have been my husband’s fault! 😄 Sue
Annie Proulx’s short story collection Heartsongs. I could read them over and over again.
The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, especially Foundation and Empire – the most OMG ending ever. The Narnia series and, while I’m on C.S. Lewis, the Space Trilogy (especially Perelandra). The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula Le Guin (but don’t watch the mini-series – it sucked). The Riddle-Master trilogy by Patricia McKillip (which is FINALLY back in print!!!) The Boxcar Children Mysteries by Gertrude Chandler Warner (which is SOOOO dated but is still a fun read). And last but not least, the Paddington series by Michael Bond et al. I’m 52 and I still have my Paddington bear on my shelf.
Those seem to be in reverse order to the way I read them. Maybe that was intentional.
A few of my favorites: Illusions by Richard Bach, Lamb by Christopher Moore, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, a collection of haiku especially the ones by Kobayashi Issa.
I fall into the in between camp. I don’t like to rip pages, but I will dog ear them and underline or put stars in the margins where there is something important to me. If it is my book I feel totally free to do all the above. Spine breaking….umm maybe no, although I have been known to firmly press it open so it will stay. Interesting post. And I will take your new book apart…just saying. Not sure about a favorite. I still like Andrea Norton books, probably out of print. And I’ve kept a copy of “Chicks in Chainmail” for several moves and will read it again.
I am really abusing books lately, I fractured my shoulder, so I am turning pages with my teeth, my nose etc. Little Women, Old man and the Sea are two of my favs. I thank you for making my crazy depression a bit more bearable by not being alone. Would love your new book as some of my PT is to practice writing.
“…reading those found books is like reading with ghosts, ones who eagerly point out their favorite passages or share their thoughts or questions in the margins.”
YES. So much this. I’m a flea market book buyer. The older, the better!
Books I love so much that they’re a part of me include The Hobbit, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, The Name of the Wind by Pat Rothfuss, and Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. If I was stuck on an island for an indefinite amount of time and could only take those four books with me, I’d be perfectly happy.
ElfQuest (ok, yeah, it’s a comic, but it’s also a series of graphic novels). The Original Quest changed my life, and the series continues to change my life. Unfortunately, most of it is out of print and getting increasingly expensive to acquire second hand, but everything written/drawn before the current story arc started 2 years ago, around 30 fantastic years of truly incredible stories, gloriously lush artwork, and amazing, engaging characters, is available to read on their website (elfquest.com) for free, no strings attached. It’s not the same as having a physical copy to love to death, but it’s the next best thing. And for these, it’s absolutely, positively worth it. Give it a shot; even if that genre isn’t usually your thing, and even if you’re initially put off by the “cute” style (those people must not have made it to the battle scenes… or the orgy) or the “too idealized” shape of the elves (there’s actually a fascinating in-world explanation for that), give it a real chance, because it will reach into your soul. In a good way, not in a Predator-pulling-out-your-spine way, of course. That would just be weird. And kinda hard, since books don’t usually have hands, and most paper cuts are too small to fit a spinal column through.
I suppose I forgot to say favorite books.
The Hobbit (though not the rest of The Lord of the Rings series. I didn’t mind the movies though)
Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon
The Heralds of Valdemar series I’ve always enjoyed.
Broken Open by Lauren Dane speaks to me as a widow.
Anne Rice, The Witching Hour. I’ve decimated one copy and am well on my way to destroying the second. Can’t wait to get You Are Here.
I should add “A Prayer For Owen Meany” by John Irving, but it falls into the category of so emotionally powerful that I have been unable to read it again. Does that make any sense at all?
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door
The Narnia series
But my all time favorite and most recommended as well as the book I have gifted to the most people: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.
Jenny you have a way with words like none other.
The books I’ve most frequently recommended (besides yours, obviously) are Wonder by RJ Palacio, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and Jane Eyre. Wonder is the first book my child ever recommended to me. I was certain it would crush my heart into a million pieces, but it never did. Please read it, and you’ll always remember to be kinder than is necessary, or try to be anyway. The others have stuck with me for different reasons, and are worth anyone’s while. I love my tech, but am yet to embrace e-readers. Good to know I am not alone!
You know, your description of the careworn books in your life makes me feel as if you’re describing beloved stuffed toys, a la Velveteen Rabbit. Like they’re becoming fully alive, “real”, as you’re wearing them to bits. <3
We lost one of our kitties, Izzy, today. Totally unexpectedly,as she was only 2 years old and not seeming ill. I’m a wreck, because it’s clear when I found her that she did not pass easily and I’m riding the guilt train like a maniac because I slept through it. So having this little heartfelt bright moment from you was very much needed. Thank you.
Now, bear with me and my reasoning…I’m a complete e-book convert because I’m a compulsive reader and when I need a new book, I need it NOW. Plus, I’m really, really lazy. SO lazy that I’m urging my son to develop an app whereby I can blink in a notable way to ‘turn’ my page, so my hands don’t have to move to do so. (But he’s not old enough yet, but I still get on his case about it). Yep. THAT lazy. I ALWAYS eat and drink when I read (somehow I’m not 900lbs despite how much I read) and so I perch my iPad on my lap and read whilst (isn’t whilst a great word? whilst. whilst. it just feels nice in your mouth. wow. dirty.) holding tea or wine in one hand and digging my other hand in a box of crackers or something. So the ‘page turn via blink’ is where I need things to go.
As for my best reads, in no particular order because they simply cannot be ranked: The Flavia De Luce series by Alan Bradley, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Good Omens by Neil Gaiman, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Every Secret Thing by Susanna Kearsley, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier, Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran.
Ack…I hate leaving the list there.
I will also add this, Furiously Happy is the first book to make me cry with laughter and nearly pee myself. And for that, it too, takes a place on my top books list 🙂
I don’t know that I could ever pick a favorite book. I love way too many and favorites change with my mood swings. The books I have read and re-read and will continue to read forever are “Daddy Long Legs” by Jean Webster, Piers Anthony’s Incantations of Immortality series, and Harry Potter.
Please don’t pick me for a copy of the new book. I will be buying this one because you so graciously gifted me Furiously Happy (which made me laugh so hard I peed my pants three times)
I’m on both sides of the condition of books argument. I love used and worn books, there is such beauty in them, but I am also very particular and if someone dog ears a book in good shape I will cut their eyes out. It’s a dichotomy that’s very annoying to live with really, but what it comes down to in the end is that I just LOVE books – old, tattered, perfectly shiny and new, hard or soft cover, …, it doesn’t matter, books, books, and more books. The only thing I really can’t tolerate is missing pages which has happened a few times.
My most worn books: O.R. Melling – The Faerie Chronicles, Hitchhikers Gudie to the Galaxy, Tom Robbins – Jitterbug Perfume, pretty much anything by Neil Gaiman, Robertson Davies or Timothy Findley, and your books for which I am so grateful.
I’ve already ordered your book, but I will still throw my name in as I have a friend I would love to be able to share it with. She doesn’t yet know how much it will mean to her, but I do.
While I have destroyed many a book, I count more the books that I love by the ones that I’ve had to buy OVER AND OVER again, because I can’t contain my excitement and give them away so that others can maybe have the same connection and love for it that I do.
Among the books that I have bought too many times: Emma, Jane Eyre, Redwall, Dragonsinger, Hiroshima, Bonk, The Night Circus, Hans Christen Anderson’s fairy tales… the list goes on 😀
Every few years, I have to read “To Kill A Mockingbird” — and clutch it to my chest when I’m done.
Would love a free book if I win. I have many favorite books. The oldest would be gone with the wind. The newest would be your Let’s pretend this never happened because u write the way my brain works sometimes. But please don’t tell anybody.
my hard back copy of Roots has been taped and glued back together…same story with To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Good Earth…soooo many books, so little time
My favorite books would have to be The Giver, This Star Won’t Go Out, any book by Jeannette Walls and Furiously Happy. Still haven’t read your other book yet, though I did buy it. I am a neat freak with my books and I like them looking fresh off the press. I do have multiple copies of books to loan people of my favorite books, just incase they aren’t so careful. I like to look at old books from garage sales or estate sales. I think the marks inside them tell their own story. Have you heard of altered books?
Your books scream LIFE, I’ve always been on the fence about books being written in, but Furiously Happy pushed me over to the side of loved and tattered books and I’m never going back!!
If you looked at my bookcase you can tell the books that speak to me. They all look like the books in the picture! There are books that look new, I didn’t like those.
My husband is a destroyer of his most loved books, and has been through multiple copies of some. Thank you for helping me to understand. Me, I stick to fingerprints, curled edges, and the occasional bromen spine. I hope you chose me for a copy of your new book. I can’t wait to read it.
F*ck Feelings by Michael I Bennett MD and Sarah Bennett
I love this. I look for books that are underlined or have notation and have imaginary conversations with the previous reader. You can tell I love a book by the chocolate thumbprints or tea spills. I’m also famous for those little flag things you can get at office stores. People still find ones that I’ve left in library books. Some of the books I’ve read till they fall apart are the Drina Ballerina series by Jean Estoril. I wish to the literary gods that they would reprint them. My Jane Austen’s are well loved too. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder.
I would love a copy of your book.
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Hind’s Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard, , My collections by Jane Austen and The Bronte Sisters, The Bible by God and a few other books at home that I reference almost daily. I already have your next book on pre-order, but I wouldn’t mind getting a free copy. 😉
And yes I would absolutely love one!!!!
I’d love a copy of You Are Here!
I don’t, as a rule, write in books. And a teacher, in elementary school, dedicated class time to teaching us how not to damage a book spine while reading books (she had SHELVES of her personal collection for student use) – it stuck. As a result, my books, although well loved and often read, appear to be fairly well preserved. Nevertheless, some of my absolute favorites haven’t fared as well due to travel or being lent to other people who are not as careful. Coloring books and journal articles (yay academia!) are a completely different story though. Notes, scribbles, doodles, and highlighting abound.
All that being said – I love old books – with their little pieces of history tucked away inside, secrets just waiting to be discovered by someone who isn’t afraid of a disheveled, somewhat unkempt (or possibly musty) outer appearance.
All of my favorite books are in the worst shape. The hobbit series, the Harry Potter series, Poisonwood Bible (by Barbara Kingsolver), and Furiously Happy is getting there. Like someone else said about the Ebooks, (autocorrect says Ebola) they lack character. I like my books messy! I can’t wait for your new book!!!
Stephen king’s “the stand”. I’ve loved two copies to the point of pages falling out. I have the e-book now, which is easier to hold (I have chronic tendinitis). ALL of the Little House books! Michener’s Alaska, Texas, Hawaii, and Colorado. (those are great if you like history, too.)
BUT with paperbacks, I read them very carefully so that the spines don’t break, especially if they’re borrowed, I don’t like messing up other people’s property, you know? but great when a book is loved to death. 😄
I love old books that have been loved…I have a bunch on my shelves that I have read over and over and the smell and nostalgia is amazing. I was in Dublin recently and they have this great bookshop with a bunch of older books that I could have spent hours in (if my husband would have let me). Sadly seems like books are a dying breed because of e-readers. I get the convenience but there is just something about the library and bookstores and that book smell….
@becomingcliche
MM Kaye has a children’s book called The Ordinary Princess (an imperfect princess lives in the forest with her animal friends!!!!!! And some squishy love stuff…) and it is one of my absolute favorites of all time. Your comment has inspired me to look up her other titles (I didn’t want to ruin my loving illusion of her as a children’s author).
I love my ereader for convenience, but I can’t help myself in a bookstore. I try to take good care of my pretty autographed books, but I do keep them in my bag and take them everywhere. I try, but often don’t succeed to keep them looking good. That said, one of my all time favorite books is ‘only love’ by Susan Sallis. It’s a kiddie one and I got it from the library-book-sale, so very pre-loved, but that never bothered me. I still read it whenever I need a good cry. I’d love a copy of your new one!
Oh man – I just found an angstly loved copy of “In Lane Three, Alex Archer” from my teen years when reorganizing my books for a move. My BF was like….why are you keeping that? Ha! Other books include “Tattoos of the Heart” and “Muppet Manners”. Yup – a book on manners by the muppets.
My go-to book has always been The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. If I get too stressed or unhappy, I re-read it, even though I’m almost 30. Another great one is Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. I’ve given away many of my copies of this book to friends, so my current one always looks pretty good. Lol. I’ve pre-ordered your new book, but I’d love a copy so I could share with a friend…or I could have one to destroy and one to keep pristine so I could make both my inner artist AND my inner perfectionist happy 🙂
My greatest dream is to see that someone loves a book I’ve written the way you love books.
ooo I need to destroy your new book! PICK ME!!!
Picking a favourite book is like picking a favourite child. It is difficult, and I don’t want to play favourites, I love all my books just as hard as you love yours. I consume them with my eyes, hands and heart. I adore the Borrowers, and anything Hans Christian Anderson, and the Sanheim Chronicles by Rob Blackwell, and, and, and agh!! I only have your books on kindle and that makes me sad, they are defintely books for the hands and for keeping!
I love carrying books around to read in lines or when I need to wait. I usually buy 1 book to destroy and the autographed ones neatly tucked away.
I understand your obsession with used, well-loved books. The book “S” by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst was written to appear used; part of the story is in the apparently hand-written margin notes. The author Nick Bantok has also written some great books that include little doodads tucked into the pages; The Forgetting Room is my favorite.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Suzanna Keyson’s Girl Intrerupted are my most falling apart copies.
I would love to have your new book and I promise to write and color all over it and tear pages out and do everything it was intended to have done to it.
I love books so much I am learning how to make them. And fix them – aarrgghh that poor Furiously Ripped Up; my eyes, my eyes! I’m very careful with mine – no dog ears or margin notes or food (the humidity here makes mould grow), always use a bookmark but occasionally I’m a bit naughty and lay them down open. And secondhand bookshops are my happy place. But if I lend a book to someone and it comes back in worse condition than it went out – that person is blacklisted for LIFE. And possibly slain multiple times in various ways by my imagination.
I do have many older books too. My absolute favourite when I was ten was Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder which I found in the bookshelf at the back of my classroom. Years later I found that same copy, spine-taped and dog-eared and battered, in our local secondhand bookshop. It’s one of my most treasured possessions and the book that kickstarted my love of fantasy.
I have a few paperbacks I bought brand new for 35 or 50 cents. (Civilization began to unravel when they took the “cents”sign off keyboards.) Starman’s Son, The Door Into Summer, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. They’re all looseleaf by now — I’ve read them over and over, and the fifty-year old glue has just disintegrated. I also underline and annotate as I read.
I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings a couple dozen times apiece, but I have the deluxe editions, so they’re holding together.
Oh I so love old books! A friend gave me a very elderly copy of Little Women, and it had pressed flowers and four leaf clovers in between the pages!! Wonderful!
Thoroughly loved books are the best!! I do not destroy my books. I love them and make them even better with that love. And I will totally love your new book to pieces!!!!
Love ya Jenny! Thanks for helping me see the light.
My husband and I are the same way. I write in my favorite books, highlighting in different colours for different readings. Some of my favorites are ridiculous because most of it is highlighted or underlined.
Alice Hoffman’s “The Third Angel” and Aryn Kyle’s “Boys and Girls Like You and Me” get repeatedly tucked away from the “share” pile.
A pile of dead trees gives us something that e-readers never will. The words may be the same, but they lack the soul that a book has.
Happy National Book Lover’s Day!!
Some of my favorites include Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind”. I really enjoy the sequel, “Scarlett” as well, though I’m not as big a fan of the prequel (??) “Rhett Butler’s People”. It’s alright, but I just don’t enjoy the author’s style as much.
And as much as I want to smack her for being a whiny entitled bratty baby, I also tend to lean on Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love” when I’m having a bad time.
I’ve also got two of Wil Wheaton’s books and both of Justin Halpern’s books on my Kindle for when I’m having a REALLY bad day and need something to make me laugh my pants off.
The book I reread the most often is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett because it makes me laugh and makes certain that the reader doesn’t take themselves (or anyone else) too seriously. Other books that I love are Ready Player One (reminds me of my carefree teenage years,) Handmaids Tale (reminds me that things can always get worse,) and Fahrenheit 451 (reminds me of the power and importance of books as well as the dangers of living only through the media social or otherwise.) Books are the most important thing in my life. They are my friends (though I do have several living breathing human (and one feline) friends as well.) They are my comfort. They are my entertainment.
I always feel super guilty about beating up my books, but this makes so much sense, and now I feel better!
I definitely need your new book. I am so excited for it! And I do plan on living it to pieces, as I do with your other books. 🙂
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. The Secret lLife of Bees by Sue Monk. To name of few. All read in three dimension. No e-reading for me
The Chronicles of Narnia. I read them for the first time as a 12 year old and cried when I discovered there were only seven. They all have tattered covers and broken spines. As fate would have it, I married my own Prince Corin (named by his English teacher father and librarian mother for the character in A Horse and His Boy) 13 years later.
I’d love a copy! And, I wouldn’t be who I am today without Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton. You and her have changed my life for the bestest! Love ya!
Anna Karenina; Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened; The Catcher in the Rye (even though I have not read it in years); Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
my favorite books in the world are the Prydain Chronicles and Call of the Wild
My books are my treasures I love smelling my books I couldn’t damage them I would be heart broken lol. I guess it’s ok to be strange sometimes(probably I am strange most of the time lol) it makes us unique.
The last book that I read in book form, I did that with, then loaned it to a friend in need. She never returned it. I read on Kindle now, mostly because of the weight of the book and size of the font, but if I truly love a book, you will find a hard copy on my book shelves somewhere. THAT drives my husband crazy, but he loves me, so he lets me 🙂 I do mark up the digital copies though, and will reread them numerous times. I also have audible copies of my favorites so I can have them read to me while I commute to work and back.
I’m always afraid that some one will yell at me for dog earring my pages and cracking the spine. I will definitely be getting your next book.
Thank you for passively curating a complete list of “Books You Must Read” in the comments section. Now, I’m going to print out and carry this list to the library where all the best books live before auditioning each one for future purchase and forever shelving. If anyone else wants the list shoot me an email and I’ll share. Those librarians won’t know what hit ’em!
I have many favorite books, but the one I read to pieces (literally) is “Skinny Legs and All” by Tom Robbins. Granted it’s a paperback, so it fell apart easier than my hardbacks of the complete Sherlock Holmes, The Hitchhikers “trilogy”, the Harry Potter series and The Hobbit.
Away by Jane Urquhart; The Time Travelers Wife; Falling Out of Time by OR Melling
Books are unicorn tears: amazing and capable of so much magic. If you ask me about a period in my life, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a book title. So many beloved stories… (would love the chance at a free book. I already pre-ordered, but I have a friend I’d love to gift one to.)
Would love to get a copy of the new book!!!! I have bought FH read it and gifted it to someone who needed it more than me 3 times now….and I just had a day last week where I wanted to read it again… so I will probably be buying my 4th copy next week. sigh ….. thank you
Mrs. Mike, The Idiot, and The Historian. I love those books. And they’re all completely different.
Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. I’ve read it a million times, and then I lent my copy to someone for their kid’s book report and never saw it again 🙁
I’m a chronic and incurable dog earer (how exactly does one noun that verb of that noun?), and I’m ok with that.
Some of my most loved are my series of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Still have my originals from when I was a kid. I would love your new book (I have your other 2). 😊
If it’s not a first edition, any given book usually slowly becomes its own little part of my history. Sometimes it’s because I’ve used train tickets or receipts from various places as bookmarks, or there’s that faint, unmistakable smell that reminds me of the second hand shop where I found it, tucked away in the middle of a crowded shelf like an archaeological treasure.
Sadly, I’m running out of room for physical books, so I have to turn to my Kindle nite often these days – and that’s filling up!
Oh, and my favorite boss? What are you doing, trying to torture me? How on earth can I possibly be expected to choose?? If
I guess you can’t really do this with a kindle edition…or can you? LOL..
I am in the same boat, love it to death, so to speak! =)
Favorites? One of the first books years ago that really spoke to me was “Running with Scissors”, and pretty much every other memoir by Augusten Burroughs. I’m a sucker for memoirs I general, which is why I love your writing so much too. My “Let’s Pretend this Never Happened” has been read a few times already. =) And Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” is another favorite. =)
Can’t wait for “You Are Here”, the teasers you have shared are amazing! I do a lot of Kindle books just because of convenience, but that is one that will be a hard copy, for sure!
I would love a shot at getting your new book! And I am very interested in getting your old book! 🙂 gwingal
Some of my most loved books is my series of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I have had them since I was a kid. 😊
Jane Eyre has always been a favorite, my copy is pretty battered, but I will never replace it. It’s my go-to when I need to read, but my brain is too tired or stressed to deal with a new book.
Beowulf.
American Gods.
Blackbird House.
Recent addition: The Night Circus.
My copy of Jane Eyre is in pretty rough shape. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it and cried over it. “Reader, I married him.” Gah! So good!
And of course my Harry Potters have seen some love. Any future kids I have will have to get new copies.
I get it — my favorite book, “And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santmyer has been literally read to pieces by me three times. I’ve had to replace it that many times because I read it over and over again to the point that it broke into pieces, and once that happened, pages would tear out/off. And since I couldn’t live without the missing pages, I would start afresh with a new copy. (I highly recommend the book. Every time I reach the end, I immediately start over, because I miss the characters that have died, and I want to go back and be with them again.) I’m still waiting for the publisher to see reason and put out a Kindle version, so I’ll have it with me wherever I go!
I have a copy of Grapes of Wrath that my mom bought for a college class, before I was born. My mom loved it so much she had my father read it (he’s not much of a novel reader) and he loved it. I found and read her copy at 15. I love that tattered book. I’ve read it 3 or 4 times.
Confederacy of Dunces.
1984.
Catch 22.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and 1Q84
I feel so lucky to have found the books which, in part, helped make me who I am today.
I knew I loved the author Joseph Campbell when I read a quote that his form of meditation was writing in the margins of books. When I was 10 I received a hardback copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis. It was my Christmas Eve present. I remember staying up late into the early morning hours to read it through completely while the snow fell gently all night. I re-read that countless times. A little girl, staying true to herself and her friends changed the world.
Robert Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”; Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”; “Memoirs of a Geisha”, & many, many more. And I would love a copy of “You Are Here”, if I were lucky enough to be chosen!
Anything in the Disc World Series. We love and miss you Sir Pratchet !
I can dog-ear catalog and magazine pages all day, but I cannot bend book pages. I’m not sure why. 🙂
Favorite books…oh goodness where to start; To Kill A Mockingbird, The Dark Jewels Series by Anne Bishop, Harry Potter Series, and Furiously Happy which took me forever to get a chance to read due to Library wait list and limited funds. But once I read it, omg I read it over and over until I had to return it and just a couple months ago I was able to finally purchase my own copy which has been read twice now and will be read more and more. I love your books, especially this one. You have put into words what I could not about mental illness. It’s my goto on rough days, it’s what I share with my husband to help him maybe see what or why things are happening in my head. I cried the first time I read it cause it was like finally someone gets me and my struggles a d more describes it so other may learn how to embrace another’s disease. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Harry Potter. All of them. I read them over and over. The first one is in particularly horrible shape. They’re my friends, and when they leave Hogwarts for the summer, my heart longs for them and I can’t wait for them to come back.
Also, The 10th Kingdom. It’s was a miniseries in 2000, but it’s also a fantastic book. It’s equally disheveled and will need to be taped up the next time I read it.
I would love a copy of you new book! It would be terribly well loved 🙂
I usually get books from the library and I am so “Victor” about them to be kind to the next patron who reads them. But there are a few keepers that I own and lovingly personalize with notes and highlighters: “You are a Badass” by Jen Sincero, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, “Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil” by John Berendt, and “Mutant Message Down Under” by Marlo Morgan. I hope to add “You Are Here” to my fondleable collection!
I want a book!! You have made such an impact on me as a person who takes crazy pills for anxiety, depression, and migraines. I LOVE Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. I’ve worn out my copies of Pride and Prejudice, Matilda, Crown Duel, and Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad and Wyrd Sisters. Thanks for being real and saying what everyone else is already thinking.
I would be honoured to trash one of your new books! I buy those books that say trash me. The ones with the specific task pages, so that I my express my love of them and others within their pages. Also so that I may save my husband the horror of the dog ear and creases as he too can not understand the physical loving of books to that extreme, as he too is a pristine book lover.
Winter of Fire by Sheryl Jordan
Beauty by Robin McKinnley
Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
And Nancy Drew when I can’t sleep.
The Betsy-Tacy books my mom gave me, Gaudy Night, Robin Mckinley’s Beauty -where the wild things are… books should be loved and messy…
I, too, love books, but I pass them on when I’m finished with them. Therefore, I have none that are battered or marked up from being so well-loved. I remember attending a training class when I was working, and the first thing the instructor told us to do was to bend the workbook and crack the spine. I was mortified! I was taught to never break the spine, dog-ear pages, or, God forbid, mark in them. My father must have been spinning in his grave.
Oh dear, no! I’m with Victor on this one. I love a pristine book that I can look at and admire. I read it with care and when I come back it’s STILL pristine and I can pretend I’m reading it for the first time all over again. I weep for this generation that only appreciates books in e-book format – they have their place, I suppose, but the ability to physically touch a book is not something I’d give up. That said, I’d love copy of your book – it might not get dog-eared (sacre bleu non!) but I’d still be loved!
I have loads of books I re-read. If I had to choose for today though (and it could change tomorrow) my books are The Outsiders and Catcher In The Rye. J’adore!
The Dog Rules (Damn Near Everything) by William J. Thomas is so funny. I’ve read it countless times and I still laugh out loud every time. For a good time read it with Dorothy Barker!
This might be predictable, but my favorites have always been Gone With The Wind and To Kill a Mockinbird. Also, ever since I read Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, that definitely made my top 3 favorite books. If I’m upset, feeling really anxious (always) or especially after I’ve had a panic attack, I love to pick up that book to read. I can open up to any chapter and just start reading and I instantly feel better. Maybe I need to read more funny books, but that was the first one I have read that actually makes me laugh out loud. So much so that I’m embarrassed to read it in public, because of the stares I get haha I have a hard time letting my books get too worn (especially the one signed by you 😊), but I love hearing you say that. Opens my eyes a little bit. Anyway, I would LOVE to get your new book. I can’t wait. It would definitely be one I would let be used up and even tear out the pages! gasp
Nice to see I’m not alone in my Velveteen Rabbit love of books. I can’t pick just one I love, but I do return to the Bronte sisters over and over again.
Your books (both of them – I love them so much and have bought them as gifts for countless peope), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, A Prayer for Owen Meeny by John Irving, The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. The Hyperbole and a Half book by Allie Brosh. I would love a copy of your book. I haven’t pre-ordered it yet because I’m hoping someone will get it for me for my birthday.
I love books – I love to read them, write in them, and make them. I love my kindle for when I absolutely have to read a book NOW not wait for it to come in the mail, and for when I’m travelling, but real paper books are best. I have not had a colouring book since I was a child, but your up-coming book is on my must have list. Because.
1) “I Know This Much is True” by Wally Lamb; it was the first time I realized that I was not alone in dealing my father’s paranoid schizophrenia. It was a magical moment and I swear the pages reached out and embraced me in a hug. 2) “A Prayer for Owen Meaney” by John Irving; it is so rich in symbolism and meaning that I carry it around in my heart every day. 3) “Furiously Happy” and “LPTNH” by the adorable Jenny Lawson; both books are the supportive, loving and accepting family that I never had. 4) Any books by Khaled Hosseini; his words echo throughout my very soul. <3
When I was a child we had a huge bookshelf in the basement filled with the Reader’s Digest hardcover books. I never touched them. I didn’t really like to read books until I go high school. Except for comics, of course! The first book I loved was The Hobbit. I love to read now and collect hardcovers from Stephen King! If I read a book and I don’t want to keep it for my collection (I have other books beside the King books) I pass them onto friends to read and they can pass them on to others. That’s what I love about books.
My original copy of Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston recently fell completely apart – after 20+ years of being my companion through various heartbreaks and episodes of seasonal depression. It opened right to my favorite story, Jackson Is Only One of My Dogs. (I stapled those pages back together, along with a couple other stories, to keep.)
I always look for used cookbooks at estate sales. The pages with the most stains are always the best recipes.
I,too, am a Bradbury fan, but my favorite is The Illustrated Man. I first read it in high school and, like Slaughterhouse Five (another fave), it has stuck with me ever since (some 20+ years ago).
I have other beloved books, but those two really stayed with me, for whatever reason, and to this day I read both at least once a year.
c.j. cherryh, madeline l’engle, connie willis, bradbury, pratchett, mckinley, oh gosh lots of books.
some i have kindle of just because i’m starting to lose pages out of the p-book from loving it to death.
yeah, cookbooks. a cookbook that is spotless means you haven’t really used it. my joy of cooking is covered with un-nameable spots, and stuffed with thousands of note cards….
i’m afraid i like to crack open a new book so i can bury my face in it and deeply snuff the binding glue.
Russka by Edward Rutherford and Wild Swans by Jung Chang are two books that are well tattered and loved in my collection, both touched my heart and soul as they opened me up to worlds I knew nothing of before..
My favorite book is the next one I buy.
If you happen to pick me for your new book please gift it to someone who may not be able to afford it. Just paying it forward. 🙂
The Secret Garden by Frances Hudgson Burnett (I had a paperback copy I loved to death and it was replaced by a hardback copy when I was a teen). Letters to a Young Artist helped me figure out how to be a creative person and got me through high school; I repaid it by destroying the spine and writing in it and underlying passages. An Abundance of Katherines was the first John Green book I owned. I carried it in my suitcase through every move I’ve made, every state I’ve lived in. It’s beaten and underlined and written in, but the best bit of additional writing was when I got to ask John Green to sign it and tell him how much it meant to me.
I have already ordered one, or maybe two, I can’t remember, but am so sure I have yet another friend who needs one. Or will have by the time it comes out. I love your books. I love your story. It reminds me of me, where I’ve been, where I sometimes still am. I have shared you with my friends and with my children. I am so grateful for your openness and courage. And for all the times you made me laugh till I was crying💕💕💕
Any and all Terry Pratchett. Gaiman’s the Graveyard Book. As horrible and misogynistic as they are, Time Enough for Love and Number of the Beast by Heinlein. Oryx and Crake by Atwood. The Little House series. Anything by Martha Grimes, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, PD James…too many. Overall, though, The Phantom Tollbooth has probably had the most influence on me.
Is love one for the pure fact that I have never held a book of yours. Only downloads. You are an amazing light for so many of us who find it hard to find the light switch
Maegan
I love a new book. Especially if it’s one I am excited to read. There is no greater joy than losing yourself in the writers world. When you revisit that world it’s like going home to visit an old friend. Books will never be obsolete.
I’ve read Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler at least five times. It’s my comfort book when I feel like my life is falling apart. It’s terribly sad in a lot of places, but life affirming through out.
My go-to books are all of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Mine are mostly second-hand & well-loved before I bought them with broken spines & dog-eared pages, exclamation marks & underlined sentences. They make me laugh & they make me think about things a little differently. My copies of your books will end up the same way in time. But my favorite type of book to buy are old cookbooks. I’m talking about the ones that are privately published by now defunct churches & social organizations: typed on a manual typewriter, mimeographed, & Xeroxed. I have one published in the 1930s from somewhere on the East Coast & the units of measurements are pinches, teacups, & pecks. It’s such a wonderful piece of history like time-traveling sans the TARDIS.
Bless the Beasts and the Children by Glendon Swarthout!!! About some “emotionally disturbed” children at a camp, trying to save a herd of buffalo from unnecessary slaughter. Little did I know, at the tender age of 11, the substantial impact this book would have on the rest of my life.
I lost my original copy a few years ago when my basement flooded.
Perhaps ” You Are Here” could take its place?
I still have the cover on my book of Furiously Happy, but it is dog eared and totally marked up so that I can go back to passages that I want to learn and be able to repeat your wisdom to other people. Two other books that are totally marked up and post-it markers is Barbara Coloroso’s Kids are Worth It, and Dr. Phil’s Self Matters and Life Code.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. This, I’m sad to say, was the first book of his that I had ever read and when I was done, I cried and I hugged it. I HUGGED THE BOOK. I have no idea why, I just loved it that much.
I have pre-ordered You Are Here, but my husband is the true colorer in our household, so if you pick ME, I think it would be interesting to see the contrast between MY copy and HIS. March! Dammit!