As so often happens (see last Monday), 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.
Elisabeth
I do imagine The Trolley Car Family is best enjoyed young, but if you have some pint-sized readers in your life at some point I heartily recommend it!
I just put a hold on one of the books in The Dover Series. None of my local library systems have more than one book in the series. So I guess it IS obscure. I’m thinking I’ll have much better success on Libby??
I have also put The Far Country on hold to get a taste of Nevil Shute!
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.
Elisabeth
Sometimes having kids can feel like having wild horses in the house, so I think either/or works 🙂
Elisabeth
Ha – Baby Beluga. Now that really takes me back.
I have found many, many books under beds. That is my first place to look when a book is missing!
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.
Elisabeth
I have never read Baby Island but of course I looked it up immediately. I can’t find a copy ANYWHERE, so I actually have a paperback copy in my Amazon cart right now and think I will buy it. I’ll call it preparation for nonexistent grandkids? The Swiss Family Robinson was one of my absolute FAVOURITE books as a kid, so finding a mash-up sounds like perfection.
ccr in MA
Oh, I loved Baby Island too! I found a used copy a couple of years ago and it was a perfect nostalgia read.
Elisabeth
Okay, with two votes, I am definitely ordering the book!
Nicole MacPherson
Was the book in the freezer scary? Remember that episode of Friends where Joey puts a book in the freezer when it’s too scary? I think it was the Shining, then he read Little Women and had to put it in the freezer when Beth died.
An older lady in our book club does what your dad does – she reads the last chapter first! I like spoilers for movies but I would never do that for a book.
My favourite semi-obscure book is Diary of a Provincial Lady.
Elisabeth
I think it was about missionaries being killed so…yes, in a way! I definitely didn’t leave it there on purpose, though.
Little Women is DEVASTATING.
I have now put a hold on Diary of a Provincial Lady on Libby and will report back!
Jenny
I feel like I need to have a talk with your dad to get to the bottom of this. WHY does it make the experience more enjoyable? I’m so intrigued by this, I think I might have to try it! I’ll report back.
Comfort books would probably be Agatha Christie mysteries for me. I’ve read them all but it was a long time ago, so sometimes I can reread one without remembering the ending, and I just love the whole experience. It’s probably partly that it brings me back to my teen years when I first read them. (Wait a minute! Does your dad read the last chapter of a mystery first??? That would ruin the whole thing! I must know more…)
Groan. So many “lost” books and library fines when the kids were little. SO glad we’re out of that phase!
Elisabeth
He finds he can enjoy the story more if he’s not anxious to find out what happens. My dad is also a BIG re-reader/re-watcher.
I have only read a handful of Agatha Christie books but they are very comforting.
And yes, my dad does read the last chapter of a mystery book first. Probably even more important to him than a non-mystery (though if my dad isn’t reading non-fiction he’ll be reading a mystery or thriller so there is always a punchline or surprise which he always “ruins”).
Julia
We lost a library book one time, and didn’t find it til we moved over a year later- it was stuck behind our tv stand, pressed up against the wall and suspended in the air. I had searched EVERYWHERE for that book, I mean probably hours of my life. Haha!
As for comfort reads, I am realizing that I do not tend to re-read books very often. Unless you count the Bible. As a kid, boxcar children and Nancy Drew books were a common occurrence but there were so many of them that I didn’t read the same one over and over.
Elisabeth
Looking for a lost book really does feel like a form of insanity. It is so flummoxing and frustrating!
Nancy Drew was the main book series from my childhood and I read the whole series through multiple times (which is A LOT of books). I also loved the Boxcar Children and the latter is, without a doubt, the biggest book series beloved by my own kids. Indy still listens to the audiobooks on repeat. Belle loves Harry Potter and it is mind-boggling how many times she has read/listened to the books in that series. They are her ultimate comfort read, and The Boxcar Children are Indy’s.
Coree
I made T do a walk of shame a few months ago. He’d taken a library book to school, despite our cautions, and LOST it! We went in to pay for it – I made him go up and confess “I’m very sorry but I’ve lost a library book, can I pay for it!” and as we walked out (the librarians were so kind and lovely), he said “I feel much better now that I’ve done that”. Of course, it reemerged from his classroom a few months later. A put a library book in the swim bag (with wet clothes) and we paid for that.
I’ve left a book in the airport lounge and the Marais Mariage Freres and now I’ll never know what happens…
Elisabeth
The no library book to school thing is a major rule in our house. School is where things go to get lost – lunchboxes, sweaters. It is a void of lost things. I think it’s a great life lesson for T, though, and it’s great he feels better about it now. Glad it showed up eventually as well.
I remember the time I walked Belle to the library when she was a toddler to return my books and I had put our returns in the bottom mesh bag part of her stroller and it got wet en route. I put them in the book drop not knowing things were soggy and was SO embarrassed the next time I went to the library and they pulled a book down from a shelf behind the counter with all the wrinkled pages and said I needed to buy a replacement. That was the one and only time I put books in the bottom of the stroller without a bag around them!
Katie
I want to read The Trolley Car Family now!
I read and reread “Girl Meets God” almost every year of my 20s. I am not usually one for spiritual memoirs, but something about that book just drew me in. So that’s both a comfort and a favorite book!
My other comfort book would be “Last Days of Summer.” My mom, brother, and I all read it when I was in high school and it’s a really sweet poignant story about a friendship between a famous baseball player and a little boy. Mostly in letter format, really easy to read, will definitely make you cry.
Elisabeth
Do it! It is such a sweet, heartwarming story and I bet your kiddos would love it.
I’ve never heard of that book OR The Last Days of Summer (I tried to find the latter on my library catalogue but, alas, they don’t have it – I will try Libby next).
Lisa’s Yarns
You know I give your dad major side eye for reading the ending first. But to each, their own!
I am always paranoid that I will lose one of the library books we have checked out. I don’t restrict the number of books the boys check out. If it fits in the library bag, we can check it out. We try our best to keep the library books in a certain section of the house, though. I am also paranoid that we will return one of Paul’s school library books to the public library. Our system is so massive, it would be lost forever!!
I don’t really have a comfort book because I do not like to re-read things! So a comfort book would probably be something light and easy to get into, like a romance.
Elisabeth
After we were losing books every month (they always turned up!) John instituted a SEVEN BOOK MAX limit. Well, that didn’t work well for me. I obeyed for a while, but then slowly added more and more. The librarians would give me a sly smile because they knew we had a “family limit.” I will say it’s very different when there are no kids books in the mix. I’m sad because I wish my kids loved reading like I do, but it’s a lot easier to just keep track of MY books.
We had a book bin in our living room and that was where all the kids books were to live, but of course they’d end up in their rooms, etc.
mbmom11
Our children’s librarian used to put the school library books that made it to the city library aside for me to return. ( not just my kids though- any book from our school!) I bet it happens all the time- they have ways of getting them to the right home.
Elisabeth
Yes! Our library does this too. A few times I’ve taken in books I own and they’ve set those aside for me (they must find them in and amongst my returns and assume that means the non-library books belong to me).
Michelle G.
I totally agree with your dad! I can enjoy a book or a show so much more if I know what’s going to happen. Then I can appreciate the writing and details. I love re-reading and re-watching. This just confirms to me that your dad is awesome!
My ultimate comfort books are anything by Jane Austen, Anne of Green Gables, and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.
Elisabeth
He will appreciate your approval of his reading technique 🙂
I’ve never read anything in the No. 1 series. I should put one of those on hold to check it out because I know they are a beloved series. Off to do that…now!
Alexandra
I use to read a lot, I mean, a book every 2-3 days. Now, I’m more likely to read 5-6 a month. As to favourite books? I’ve had many, at many different times throughout my life, as I’m sure many of us have. I still love the Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis from my teen years, I also love the Winnie the Pooh books of early childhood. I also fell in love with science fiction as a teen and read a ton of books probably not age appropriate that both my dad and sister fed me.
I’ve never lost or misplaced a book, ask my partner. Nor have I ever been late back to the library, I’m usually early and looking for more books to read.
As for reading the ending first? What evil is this? 😆
Elisabeth
My reading levels ebb and flow tremendously from month to month and year to year. This is the first year I’ve really read a lot of fiction since before university. I think I got to the point where I was feeling very “read” out, then I had little kids, and now I suddenly have more flexibility again and no sleepless nights. Well, at least no sleepless nights because of a crying infant!
I know, my father’s approach is HIGHLY controversial! Don’t shoot the messenger 🙂
I cannot for the life of me get into The Lion, W, W series. I have tried again and again and it is a Christian allegory that is rich with so many faith truths that I love. Still, I just find those books an epic slog.
Alexandra
I would have to say the same, mine comes and goes. I have big spurts then a trickle through to nothing. My best months are usually during the winter, but only on days it’s bright and sunny.
I can image kids put a big dent in everything, not just our reading habits. Lack of sleep doesn’t help either.
I think your father is a reading unicorn, a very rare thing indeed. I can almost hear my father turning in his grave at the thought.
It’s true that I did read the first couple of books wayyyyy back as a teenager, for school. And, well, haven’t read them since. I think it was more that sense of escape to another world I loved. That fantasy aspect more than anything, that inspired me to try scifi and fantasy more.
Maria
I’m glad my comment was inspirational! The five year old and I read a chapter a night from a chapter book so I’ll have to look for Trolley Car Family!
Obscure book I love: The Blue Castle! Except in the blogging world it’s no longer obscure😂
Using the library has gotten expensive lately. I hadn’t lost a book since I was a kid, but in the last year and a half my children have lost four or five. Three of them have been found (one a year after it was lost), so we’re now the proud owners of them. One is currently still lost (there is a month between the final overdue notice and the bill, so I have another week or so to hunt.) I HATE seeing DELINQUENT in red on my account online so even though the librarians always offer me more time to look I tend to pay up fairly quickly. Plus, if I’ve scoured the house and car multiple times it feels pointless to hunt again.
Elisabeth
It’s such a fun book! I bet your kiddos would love it. It’s fun and adventuresome but there is no real suspense.
I had never read The Blue Castle before the CBBC – I am so thankful that Engie introduced me to it.
We don’t have fines for overdue books anymore, so I guess until I officially declare it to be lost I wouldn’t have to pay for it? I’m not sure, but I am enjoying keeping books an extra day or two if I haven’t finished them. Shhhh. Don’t tell my librarians. Actually, it’s okay if you do. I confessed to one librarian that without the fines I keep books past the due date and she said all the librarians do, too.
Maria
So there aren’t any late fines in NB but after it’s overdue a certain amount (a month or so) they send you a bill assuming it’s lost. I’m really glad there are no late fines or we’d pay a lot. 😅
Elisabeth
Ahhh. Interesting. I’ve had books overdue for…a while…and never got a bill, but this makes sense. Maybe I’ve just never kept it long enough to trigger that. Because, surely, there has to be a way for libraries to recoup the cost of missing/lost books?!
Ally Bean
I read the last chapter of a novel after I read the first and sometimes second chapter of the book. That’s how I was taught to read literature in college. If you know the ending then you’ll know who to follow closely as you read the story.
As for using reader comments as a catalyst, I did that very thing today, too. Serendipity, my bloggy friend.
Elisabeth
Ohhh. Scandalous, Ally! Though I definitely see the point in terms of being better equipped to read a novel critically. You can pay attention more closely when you’re not as worried about keeping up with a fluctuating plot. My dad does it because he’s impatient, but I think your reasoning is very sound!