30 Days of Books: Day 15

[brigid]

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Day 15 – Your “comfort” book

Every few months or so, at least once a year, Nesko and I talk about moving to his family’s country of origin. This would be a very long over seas voyage, and shipping things would be expensive as all get out. So every time we talk about that, I take mental stock of All My Books and try to figure out which ones I’d pack and take– or, as eReaders become more and more common, which I’d repurchase in electronic format.

During our second to last move, we divested ourselves of quite a lot of books. Literally, about a third of them. It was weird and hard and almost traumatic, and I felt lighter and free-er afterwards, although I have gone back looking for a few of the books we got rid of and once we are permanently settled some place I am totally going to repurchase volumes of “Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.” I dipped into them too rarely to justify their weight and amount of shelf space they took up.

This is one of those questions that’s so incredibly hard for me to answer. Like a lot of my introverted, socially awkward friends I turned to books for socialization and companionship. In the absence of human connection, kindness, and understanding, I had books. They were as close to friends as I had, until my awkward social fumblings in high school. Like a lot of my friends, I’m inordinately attached to books. I think that’s part of why I re-read books I enjoy so frequently. It’s very much akin to visiting good friends. (I think it’s also part of why I’m so horrible at maintaining human friendships. You can put a book down and pick it up later on and nothing has changed. With humans, you need to make an effort and keep in touch and be considerate.)

Anyway, although I didn’t like them at first (until I read The Fall of The Kings, which for whatever reason snapped everything into connection and made me fall in love with the world and characters when before I’d only appreciated the books for their excellent writing), I turn again and again to the Riverside books. I also dip frequently into Robyn McKinley’s Damar books, although recent rereads have left me frustrated at the pro-Colonialism brown-people-saved-by-feisty-white-women elements. I’ve mentioned these books at least once already in this meme. A lot of these questions are pretty repetitive.

I’m working on a real blog post about Political Correctness and what it is and isn’t, and why complaining about PC thought police makes you look like an asshole. However, I have a 16 month old who is refusing to sleep unless it’s with another person (usually me), so I have very little time to myself at the moment. If you’re interested in reading baby stuff, feel free to hop on over to http://brigidkeely.com/baby/ and check it out. Be warned that most of the recent posts are about OMGSLEEPISSUESWTF.