What Books Were In Your Parents House When You Were Growing UP? And What Books Are in YOUR House Now?
Dazzling Confrères!
You have recommended some of the best books I’ve ever read in my life! I am full of affection for you and gratitude for your suggestions. Now, as many Conflabbions are heading home for Thanksgiving, I’d love to discover how and where your taste in literature was formed!
1. What books were in your parents house when you were growing up?
2. What books were in your childhood room?
3. Did your parents read you bedtime stories?
4. How do you arrange, organize and display books in your own home now?
P.S.
On the off chance you might be spending Thanksgiving with family who may include Trumpers….old E. Jean has a nice little gift suggestion:
If you want to tease them, just give them a hearty year’s subscription to Ask E. Jean. They will open it up and see. . . .
My parents were big readers and so were we. My dad who was an abusive brute, did one good thing. he introduced me to H. P. Lovecraft and Poe and when the nasty librarian told me I couldn't pick out books from the adult section, he went to her and said, "Oh yes, she can." We had only one place for books. in my home now, we have books in every room, in no order, so it's always a lovely surprise to see a book I hadn't thought of in a while and take it out and read it! when we had Max, our home away from home was the bookstore. Max knew he could sprawl out and read as many books as he wanted, and we would BUY HIM as many books as he wanted. He still is a huge reader, too, so I feel like we did our job!
Nancy Drew, that ace sleuth, was on my childhood bookshelves; along with the complete set of Dickens on my parents bookshelves; in youth, I was consumed with Capote’s IN COLD BLOOD: I found writing lessons in that book as I was trying to write; today: both Joan Didion and Eve Babitz; THE SCARLET LETTER by Hawthorne; everything Patti Smith; everything Alice Hoffman; everything Edna St Vincent Millay and Yeats - and Margaret Atwood: I dreamed about her last night