As so often happens (see last Monday’s post), inspiration comes from the comment section of the blog. Today’s post is brought to you by Maria, who mentioned that two of the books she was reading in March mysteriously disappeared – turns out, they had been hidden away by her 1-year-old!
That immediately reminded me of a book mishap of my own. When I was a tween, I borrowed a book from a friend, and then… it vanished. I searched high and low for weeks. Then one day, I opened the freezer (as one does), and there it was. I must have been carrying the book, grabbed something from the freezer, and somehow set the book down and forgot it. Other than being very well-chilled, it was perfectly fine. But still…the freezer?
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gotten late notices on library books I was absolutely certain that I had already returned – only to find out later they’d been reshelved without being scanned in. Cue that surge of panic and self-doubt (did I really take it back? I was so sure I did!), followed by sweet, sweet vindication.
Thankfully, with no more late fees and no more library trips on behalf of little kids, that particular anxiety is mostly in the past.
Since I have quite a few new readers, I figured I should reintroduce one of the more divisive bookish facts about my family: my dad always reads the last chapter of a fiction book first. Yes, on purpose. He does the same thing with miniseries and movies – he’ll watch the final scene first, just to know how it ends.
He says it makes the whole experience more enjoyable. I used to be in that camp too (gasp) but now I’m firmly on the no spoilers! side of things. I suspect many of you will be horrified at this practice. Feel free to take up your angst with my dad.
And finally, the book that lives in my heart forever: The Trolley Car Family by Eleanor Clymer. This obscure Scholastic paperback (it has a whopping 38 Goodreads reviews) is my all-time favourite make-me-feel-warm-and-fuzzy book. I’ve read it more times than I can count. I read it to my own kids over and over…until they begged me to stop because they’d had enough. Now my only hope is grandchildren. Someone has to love this book as much as I do!!
*This book was originally gifted to one of my sisters in 1987 (I wasn’t even a year old). She’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands if she wants it back.
That’s it. Just a handful of random book thoughts for today.
Your turn:
- Do you have a favourite book you wish more people knew about?
- What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever found a lost book?
- Do you (or someone you know) read the last chapter first?
- What’s your ultimate comfort book – a book that just makes everything feel better?
Header photo by Sinziana Susa on Unsplash
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Birchie
I feel like I need to read The Trolley Car Family!
– Obscure book I wish everyone knew about: The Dover Series by Joyce Porter. Spoof on the old school British mysteries.
– Weirdest place I’ve ever found a book: hmmm, nothing comes to mind. I’ve done the thing where I know I returned a library book, they said otherwise, and a long time later I found out they were right.
– No one I know reads the last chapter first!
– My comfort books are Nevil Shute novels: The Far Country, No Highway, A Town Like Alice, etc, etc. It’s not a coincidence that I started rereading them right when we found out that our old dog had cancer.
mbmom11
The lost book: we checked out a board book ( Baby Beluga) and at some point it got flagged as lost. I could not find it after weeks of searching, so I paid for the lost book. 6 months later, moving a box out of a cupboard, I found it inside- my eldest had gone through a phase of ” packing for a pretend trip” and must have carefully put it in thr box . Luckily, I saved the receipt, so I was able to return the book and get my money back. ( The library stopped that a few years ago – once you’ve paid for a lost book, it’s yours. No refunds.) Also found one once under the mattress frame of a trundle bed. That one was only missing for a month or two though.
Right now, the Murderbot Diaries are my comfort books. For more highbrow tastes, when I was pregnant, I would reread Jane Austen.
I have no bone to pick with your dad – I sometimes read the ending to see if I want to bother with a book that I’m having trouble getting through
And I love finding a book on the library shelf that the library thought was overdue- I check out a lot of books ( esp when I had horses of little ones at home) so it was easy to have one get misplaced in the shuffle. I did this just last week with a DVD as well.
mbmom11
Hordes not horses – autocorrect my nemesis! I have lots of children not a stable.
sarah
Those Apple paperbacks take me right back! I loved that imprint when I was a kid– and at 9 in 1987 I read a LOT of those. Did you read Baby Island? That was my favorite weird kiddie book.