The Memory of Books

Books are memories. I've always heard this and never really though too much about it. But as the stresses of the summer started to set in--figuring out how to move to England, writing book 3, editing another book, and work--I deconstructed my personal library, a therapeutic exercise. I took all my books off their shelves, spreading them out in alphabet piles, which takes up my room and goes into the hallway.

It was slightly stressing me out that my books weren't in alphabetical order and that books from the same author weren't together or that series were split up. This always stresses me out (I'm weird), and now that I have bookshelves in two different rooms, that makes it even worse.

But as I pick up each book to alphabetize it, type into my inventory, and re-shelve it, memories flash back to me of when in my life I was reading each book, where I was, things that were happening around me. And that's kind of amazing to me--the fact that the written word has left that much of an impression on my mind that I can say, yes I was reading this book when I was here, doing this.

My favorite example--I was twelve years old when Twilight hit it big. I read the series in a week, right before the announcement of the movie was made. But I was reading them in Mississippi, while I was staying at my grandmother's house. As many other people probably remember from their time reading Twilight, I could not put them down, could not read them fast enough. I read well into the night, when my grandmother believed I was sleeping.

At this time, there were other people in the house, so I was sleeping in my grandmother's bed with her. I believe I'd just finished the third book, when suddenly I woke up to, "Hannah, Hannah, what are you saying? Why are you standing up?" I had apparently slept walked out of bed, done a loop around the house, and returned to my grandmother's room, saying, "I can't find the sunlight!"

I went peaceably back to sleep, but the next morning, my grandmother said to me, "I don't think you should be reading those scary vampire books anymore." :D I obviously did not follow this advice, quite the opposite actually.

But just going through all these books, it was a lot of fun, thinking, "Oh, I bought this book there," "Oh, this person recommended this book to me," "Oh, I read this book on the plane back from Portland," "Oh, this was the book that I threw against the wall at the end of it!" (PS it was a Maggie Stiefvater book).

Books are a walk through memory lane. I encourage you to go back through your personal library and reminisce with your books. It's a wonderful way to spend time an evening, or in my case, three evenings :)

Happy Reminiscing,
     HER