Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

It Is Not Better to Have Libris and Lost

User avatar
Ludmilla
Bibliophile
Posts: 1346
Joined: September 2008
Location: Georgia USA

Post by Ludmilla » Tue May 31st, 2011, 1:16 pm

As a parent, I regret that I didn't bother to hold onto to my old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy novels. Most of the books I read in my youth were library books, though. I didn't grow up in a family where books were in abundance and could be taken for granted. We very much depended on the library for most of our reading.

In my adult years, I have slowly begun collecting favorites from my youth -- most of Mary Stewart's books, for example. It's so nice to own them now and read them anytime I want.

It's so rare that I find anyone in real life with similar reading tastes that I don't worry about getting loaned books back. It doesn't happen often enough for me to fuss about and I don't own anything so rare or valuable that can't be replaced.
Last edited by Ludmilla on Tue May 31st, 2011, 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
LoveHistory
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3751
Joined: September 2008
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Contact:

Post by LoveHistory » Tue May 31st, 2011, 1:31 pm

I don't see the thread as unsuccessful. Sometimes it takes a while to get responses that gel with the theme of the thread. No need to get discouraged, Diane. We all have books that we've loved, and some we have lost. Maybe not everyone has a story as touching as yours. Doesn't mean the thread is a loss.

And I don't think it's your fault you lost that book, unless trusting people is a fault, and I refuse to believe that.

User avatar
EC2
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3661
Joined: August 2008
Location: Nottingham UK
Contact:

Post by EC2 » Tue May 31st, 2011, 1:36 pm

My mum chucked out my Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell (sp) when I got married. When I wanted them out of her loft, she no longer had them. My fault. I should have taken them with me rather than thinking they'd be safe at mum's!
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

User avatar
Telynor
Bibliophile
Posts: 1465
Joined: August 2008
Location: On the Banks of the Hudson

Post by Telynor » Tue May 31st, 2011, 3:52 pm

I just don't lend books out any more. Some, like my Folio Society editions, or the art books, or the rare stuff, well -- those don't leave the house. That being said, I do like having a Nook, much more portable.

User avatar
The Czar
Reader
Posts: 137
Joined: May 2011
Location: Nashville TN

Post by The Czar » Tue May 31st, 2011, 5:39 pm

I loaned out my copy of Dante's Divine Comedy years ago... never got it back.

I also loaned my boss (about 9 months ago?) a beautiful, color illustrated volume of D'Alures Greek Mythology that I've had since I was 7 years old. Haven't gotten it back yet. I should bug her about that...

But the worst kicker... I had a pipe burst once, soaking a bookshelf that had my most prized books on it. A beautifully engraved illustrated Divine Comedy, some old editions of Oscar Wilde and romantic poetry I bought on a trip to London... and an entire set of the Harvard Classics. Molded, ruined. I walked in with a friend of mine, saw it, and yelled "My books!" he said, "um dude, what about the ceiling and the expensive ruined bookcase?" He just has his priorities out of whack. Insurance reimbursed me, but I'd had those books for years, some I bought abroad, and can't easily replace.

I also had a box full of classics that I left in my parents attic while I went to law school... when I moved back, I retrieved them, only to find that termites and silverfish had eaten them.

My house, unfortunately, seems to be where books go to die. :
Last edited by The Czar on Tue May 31st, 2011, 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
_______________________________________________
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

User avatar
DianeL
Bibliophile
Posts: 1029
Joined: May 2011
Location: Midatlantic east coast, United States
Contact:

Post by DianeL » Tue May 31st, 2011, 11:11 pm

Thank you all. :)

Ludmilla, I can still remember the store I was visiting, one summer at my aunt's house, when I first discovered Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels. I still have my original paperback copies of The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment; did replace The Crystal Cave at some point along the way - and I still always think even of my original Wicked Day as a "new" addition to what had seemed to me a complete series. I am a dooooooorrk for books (and this story informs my fantasy that, someday, some fourteen year old boy will somehow magically, in my imaginary world where iPods and portable games don't exist, be suffering a boring summer at his old auntie's house, and will discover my own novel ...).

The same Aunt I was staying with back then once gave me the Kristin Lavransdatter series (the edition with the picture on the front of a girl I thought looked very much like Meredith Baxter Birney - heh) when I was in college. It took me some effort to warm up to that work, but now I love it, and not least because it was something she loved and wanted me to enjoy, and I so do now. Those books went the way of cheap paperbacks at some point, and I got a nice hardbound copy, I think a 1950s or 60s edition, with all the titles in one binding; that book I have warm feelings for, even though it's not the exact one she gave me, just because aesthetically I think she would like it. My Aunt L. was a wonderful woman.

Many of my family were teachers; maybe my passion for the material of my library comes from so many associations with them. It always feels, for me, like the associations improve those books I have them for. I glance at my shelves, and I realize, a HUGE proportion of the books I own have some emotional association for me. Makes me feel pretty wonderful about the people weaving their ineffable way through all my pages.
"To be the queen, she agreed to be the widow!"

***

The pre-modern world was willing to attribute charisma to women well before it was willing to attribute sustained rationality to them.
---Medieval Kingship, Henry A. Myers

***

http://dianelmajor.blogspot.com/
I'm a Twit: @DianeLMajor

User avatar
Ludmilla
Bibliophile
Posts: 1346
Joined: September 2008
Location: Georgia USA

Post by Ludmilla » Wed June 1st, 2011, 12:54 am

Some of my most vivid memories of reading harken back to summertime. My parent's home didn't have A/C, and I can remember staying up late at night, sweating profusely, with windows open and curtains billowing, lost in some page turner (especially when I went through my Ludlum/spy thriller phase). My sister was married by the time I entered high school, and I would spend two or three weeks with her each summer. My fondest memory of those summers is reading from her collection of bestsellers -- books like Clavell's Shogun. She's deceased now, and I'm sure my sentimentality over some of those books is tied up with memories of my sister and our shared love for reading.

User avatar
DianeL
Bibliophile
Posts: 1029
Joined: May 2011
Location: Midatlantic east coast, United States
Contact:

Post by DianeL » Wed June 1st, 2011, 11:32 pm

My brother called yesterday, and he commented on my post (I put the OP on my blog and even my writing blog as well as starting this thread ... I believe in overkill!). We got to talking about the book, and I told him that I had learned Donald Harington died a year and a half ago, and I think we both sort of stopped to mourn that for a moment. Harington was an enormously generous, interesting man.

Big brother is an archaeologist, and his posts about his work get me thinking about artifacts a lot. Part of me resists the "materialistic" aspect of having the attachents we do to Things - but another part of me (the sentimental side ...) is drawn to the emotional structures we build ourselves. Human beings are hard wired for totemistic behavior. We're a fascinating species.
"To be the queen, she agreed to be the widow!"

***

The pre-modern world was willing to attribute charisma to women well before it was willing to attribute sustained rationality to them.
---Medieval Kingship, Henry A. Myers

***

http://dianelmajor.blogspot.com/
I'm a Twit: @DianeLMajor

User avatar
Michy
Bibliophile
Posts: 1649
Joined: May 2010
Location: California

Post by Michy » Tue June 7th, 2011, 4:05 pm

My most painful lost book is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I got a copy of this at age 11 through some free book giveaway program at school (I went to poor, rural schools so we sometimes received shipments of new paperbacks, to encourage reading I suppose). This was a very difficult and impressionable time for me, so that the book made a deep and lasting impression on me that persists even to this day, 30+ years later. I loved the book so much that I ended up buying copies of Betty Smith's three other books (which must have been re-released all around that same time).

I remember still having the books as a teenager, but sometime after high school (which is when I left home but didn't take my books with me) they disappeared. I can't imagine that I would have ever disposed of ATGIB, so perhaps my mom did. I'll never know.

I don't mind losing the other three, but oh, I wish I had my copy of ATGIB! I have a wonderful audio version, but I want a print version just like the one I had at age 11. I am hopeful I will come across one someday, although considering it was a paperback issued in the 1970s, my chances of finding one in decent condition are probably close to nil.

User avatar
Michy
Bibliophile
Posts: 1649
Joined: May 2010
Location: California

Post by Michy » Tue June 7th, 2011, 4:14 pm

[quote=""The Czar""]I also loaned my boss (about 9 months ago?) a beautiful, color illustrated volume of D'Alures Greek Mythology that I've had since I was 7 years old. Haven't gotten it back yet. I should bug her about that...

[/quote] I stopped loaning books years ago. But a year-and-a-half ago, I made an exception and loaned a book to my boss, which has never been returned. In his defense, he didn't ask to borrow the book; it was a case of me saying, "I just read this book and I think you'd really like it, so here." But still, my name was written on the inside (which should indicate the book was a loan and not a gift) and you'd think at some point he'd return it, read or not (which I have done when people loaned me books that I really didn't want to read. I keep it for a couple of weeks, then return it saying that my TBR is so high I don't know when I'll be able to get to it and I don't want to keep their book that long, etc. etc. blah blah). But somewhere along the line I passed the window of opportunity for asking about it; to mention it now would only be embarrassing and awkward for both of us. So, I've just chalked it up to experience. Luckily it wasn't a book that I really loved, although I did plan on keeping it. Lesson learned. :)

Post Reply

Return to “Chat”