At the beginning of every new semester, my shelves are graced with the delicate smells of the paper factory and the used bookstore. Thick textbooks and reprints of novels I haven’t read come in waves through our mail system, and even two weeks in I am still receiving packages loaded down with titles like And Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology and Songs in Praise of Lord Krishna. I’ll hoist my bag on home and dump them all on my bed, in awe that by the end of three months, all (or at least most) of these books will have been read and may possibly have to be shipped off to another destination.
As you might imagine, it can get kind of overwhelming.
So, today I will indulge my instinct to run away from all that is new to the comfort and safety of my favorite “old” books, which in themselves are not aged, but I came across them much earlier in my life and am eager to reread them. Remember that little girl version of me that wanted to read all the books in the world? She read these books and deemed them so important that she bought them for keeps and now carts most of them around whenever she moves to any new destination like, oh say, to New York City. Here’s the short list:
The Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda – Pablo Neruda
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Pocket Muse – Monica Wood
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Abhorsen Trilogy – Garth Nix
The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
What are your old favorites? Tell them to me in the comments!
Also, if you are clamoring for something new to read, I’m always posting up interesting articles and books over at my Tumblr page.
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