Neha got me thinking about re-reading Salinger’s "Catcher In The Rye," and I wandered over to the "finished" bookshelves and pulled it out to add to my "to be read" queue (goodness, I had an extra Q in queue!) marching like soldiers to be battled with down the hearth.
But while I was there, I looked over some of what I have stored there, picking out these long-ago goodies: Tobacco Road, The Silmarillion, Grapes of Wrath, Wuthering Heights, The Mysterious Island, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
I wondered, then remembered, why I don’t have DuMaurier’s Rebecca; in freshman year English, Mrs. Baltay started out the year with a box full of paperbacks. We each picked one, read through it, returned it and picked another. Rebecca was my first selection. At the end of the year, we each got to pick one to keep. It was a hard choice, but Wuthering Heights won out.
There are many, many more on the shelves, and I have given hundreds away. But The Borzoi Poe is there, a two-book set that I spent $30 on way back when that was a lot of money. I have Frank Hebert’s "Dune" series, though I don’t remember reading them. About twenty-plus of Stephen King, a few Best Of’s such as H. G. Wells and Bradbury, along with many fantasy, mystery, archery, bios, gardening, psychic and psychological books, and yes of course, The Joy of Sex.
Quite a collection. But so many are missing that I’ve read and don’t have a copy of. Hmmm. Some, I know, were borrowed and returned. Don’t normally loan out the special books, and don’t even write my name inside them. The last book I loaned out several months ago was ""Blood Meridian" and since I don’t think I’ll ever see it again, have already bought another copy.
It’s a personality flaw, I suppose; the need to own or hold onto something that made a difference in my life. But at least I will not brand it by writing in my name.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology