Without further adieu, this week has a very special guest poster – my beautiful wife, Crystal. A woman of many talents: she tries to juggle, she has amazing flow, mother of cats, breaker of bread, Queen of the Andals, etc etc.
When Shawshank initially asked me to write something for him, I declined. For one thing, my own blog isn’t on any particular topic. I can’t very well come over into his space and post about my life. He asked me to post about favorite books. I don’t work well when I’m given asked to do something as a favor, and even worse when I’m given a topic.
But, I’m willing to do it.
I don’t think I could come up with an absolute favorite book if I tried. I’ve never finished a book and thought, that book fucking changed my life. On the other hand, it doesn’t take long for regular readers to see Shawshank’s undying love for House of Leaves or Twilight. Maybe it’s the circumstances surrounding them that makes them special to him. It’s that idea that ties into my thought about what makes books special to us.
For a long time, my favorite book was a copy of 1001 Questions Answered About the Seashore. It wasn’t my book, it was one of the maybe 10 or so books at my grandparents’ summer beach home. I read it nightly whenever I was down there, it was almost a ritual. Read the book at night, and preach its knowledge at the beach during the day. It was a favorite, but why?
Hold that thought.
When I was 12, my homeroom was next to the school’s library. That’s where I first discovered Gone With the Wind. I still consider it one of my favorite books. It catches a lot of shit for the subject matter and language. Will it change your life? Not in the least. But my grandmother and I bonded over my library’s copy. “It’s amazing, right there in the library for you”, she said. “When it came out, I had to sneak it out with me to babysitting jobs if I wanted to read it”.
One of my most common replies to the “what’s your favorite book?” question is usually Stephen King’s IT. Is it King’s best work? Even I, who holds it above others in my list of favorite King books, don’t consider it his best. So… why is it a favorite? Because my copy was my grandfather’s. He had signed the inside cover, like he did with all of his books. I was about 9 when IT was released, and the cover was spooky. Five summers later, IT replaced 1001 Questions as my favorite summertime read. I asked my grandfather if I could read it. He looked at my mother for guidance. “Just give it to her”, she said. “She understands the dirty stuff, and she’ll sneak it out and read it anyway.”
They’re all favorite books of mine, even though the contents of each is as varied and different as my hair colors in any given month. I look at those times now and remember how it felt to be able to identify flounder and comb jellies and the ultra-rare sightings of pipe fish. I can feel the hot rocks under my feet while I climbed barefoot in search of tidal pools. It’s nothing to be transported back to my happy 12-year old self, talking to my grandmother about scandals and racism. If I close my eyes, I can smell the hot cut grass in the common area of the apartment complex, taste the frozen lemonade while I read IT under the crab apple trees.
They’re not favorite books because they’re amazing, well-written pieces of literature. However, they’re all special, at least to me.