Cindy's Meme

Cindy tagged me for this one. Apparently this meme was making the rounds back in November, but I like to pay up when I've been tagged, so my answers are below. I won't be tagging anyone, but the scoop on how you can do be a part of this one is at the end of the post.

The books that have been on my shelves the longest:
How about RING AROUND THE ROSARY? Yes indeedy my dear friends. This is the book my Aunt C gave me for my First Holy Communion, as we called it way back in June of 1962. Take a look at this...

A book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time, etc.):

1. SHATTERED LEGACY by Lora Leigh. I actually purchased this from Ellora's Cave and printed the whole darn thing out on my printer and took it to the hospital with me. I read this book at my mother's bedside near the end of her life. I remember her waking and asking me what I was reading.

2. THE CARPETBAGGERS by Harold Robbins. Um...yeah. I read this one as a precocious 13-year old babysitter. The book boggled my mind. It was my first 'adult' book.

3. Within the year I read the CARPETBAGGERS I was staying at my grandparents and found FAREWELL THE STRANGER by Saliee O'Brien in the book case in the basement. I consider this book to be how I started reading romance novels.

A book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.):

I met Ann Aguirre at RWA and was so effusive and sycophantic in my praise for GRIMSPACE that she took mercy on me and gave me an ARC of WANDERLUST after I attended one of her workshops where she was presenting. I was over the moon.

A book that’s been with you to the most places:
My copy of Little Men by Louisa May Alcott.

I loved LITTLE WOMEN, but every time I read it, until I was an adult, I borrowed it from the library. When we lived in Japan I received a copy of LITTLE MEN as a Christmas gift. I honestly can't remember for certain who gave it to me, but I think it was my grandparents. Anyway, for a long time this was the only book I owned. It was mine. All mine. It was kept in my room and has moved with me ever since. RING AROUND THE ROSARY doesn't count because my Mom kept that one (who knows why) until I got married.

The most recent addition to your shelves:
Over the Fall I glommed Jodi Thomas. So I'd have to say TWISTED CREEK would be the latest addition to my keeper shelves.

Okay, that's it for me. Now it's your turn. Here are the rules if you want to participate in this one.

The Rules
1. Tag 3-5 people, so the fun keeps going!
2. Leave a comment at the original post at A Striped Armchair, so that Eva can collect everyone’s answers.
3. If you leave a comment and link back to Eva as the meme’s creator, she will enter you in a book giveaway contest! She has a whole shelf devoted to giveaway books that you’ll be able to choose from, or a bookmooch point if you prefer.
4. Remember that this is all about enjoying books as physical objects, so feel free to describe the exact book you’re talking about, down to that warping from being dropped in the bath water…
5. Make the meme more fun with visuals! Covers of the specific edition you’re talking about, photos of your bookshelves, etc

Can we talk about books?

Books in Winter by Jessie Wilcox Smith

I've been tagged for a book meme by KristieJ and I decided what the heck I'll give it a whirl. Although I have to confess I did some estimating with my book count because I didn't take them all off the shelves to count. There are just too damn many to move. K? But if I erred it was on the conservative side I didn't round up.

1. Total number of books I own: Just me? Uh, 2302. Guess I don't have to worry about having something to read when I'm old...right?


2. Last book I bought: COMING UNDONE by Susan Andersen


3. Last book I read: AGNES AND THE HITMAN by Bob Mayer and Jennifer Crusie


4. Five books that mean a lot to me: This one is hard. The most I can say is that just for today these are the five books I'd choose. Tomorrow I might choose a different five books.

a. FAREWELL THE STRANGER by Saliee O'Brien. My first romance. A book found in my grandparents basement. I talked all about it here.

b. OVER THE EDGE by Suzanne Brockmann. This is special for a weird reason. In the book terrorists take over a plane. I finished this book the night of September 10, 2001. Just two weeks before we'd seen a repeat on 60 minutes about this guy Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. When 9/11 happened the first thing I said to GG was it was terrorists and I bet it was that Bin Laden guy. The primary love story isn't what resonated with me it was that Suzanne Brockmann had probably written the book a year (or more) earlier and captured the political times of the world we live in and the men and women who fight against terrorism.

c. SHADES OF TWILIGHT by Linda Howard. I just love the characters Roanna Davenport and Webb Tallant. It's about family, betrayal, dynastys. It's one of the few books I own that I've re-read more than once. I could name a couple of other of Howard's books, but I picked this one to represent them all.

d. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte. I remember reading this and thinking that everyone deserves to be loved.

e. EXODUS and MILA 18 by Leon Uris. I mentioned MILA 18 before in a meme because this book was very powerful when I read it. These books were written about Jews after the WWII when they were trying to establish a home and country in Israel (Exodus) and about the Polish Jews resistance in the Warsaw ghetto (MILA 18). The books gave history a human face and made it real to me. I cried my eyes out.


5. Tag 5 people. I hate tagging people. I never know who to pick...but I always like reading what other people write. So if you read this and want to do it...please do. How's that?

How I Started Reading Romance Novels

While visiting my grandparents one summer when I was 13 years old, I found a copy of Saliee O'Brien's FAREWELL THE STRANGER in my grandparent's basement. Holy crap!! Not only did it have sex, it had betrayal, murder, mayhem a hunky frontiersman and a stalwart, brave heroine. Of course, I LOVED the book. I had read my first romance novel.

My trip down memory lane and recollection of how I started reading romance was sparked by a post at SMART BITCHES. Apparently there was a "Dear Abby" letter asking whether it was appropriate for a 14 year old to read romance novels. My initial reaction while reading the post was something like "Hmmm...14 seems kind of young to start reading romance". Then I remembered FAREWELL THE STRANGER. It took me a few minutes to figure out how old I was at the time. It's been that long, but I was sort of surprised to realize I was only 13 years old. So on reflection I commented that I don't censor my sons (16 & 19) and never have but I did always know what they were reading, watching and listening to and that I thought that was important. To talk about things with your kids.

Anyway, the shocking part about my personal reading experience at 13 wasn't so much the content of the book. It was the realization that it was in my grandparent's basement. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that since the book was in the basement some adult I knew must have purchased the book to read it. But who? My ultra conservative and traditional Italian Catholic grandmother? My mother? One of my aunts? I sure couldn't picture my grandfather reading it. So at an awkward and hormonal age I began to look at the adults in my life in a new light. Sexual beings. Holy sh*t! Yeah, it's enough to almost put you off sex forever. I sure couldn't relate my parents or grandparents to the characters in the book...so I didn't. Which was better for all of us.

So I drag the book upstairs. I read the book openly. I wasn't trying to hide anything. When I picked FTS up I didn't know there was going to be sex in it. You can see from the photo above that the cover is pretty innocuous. Nothing to suggest anything sexy was going to happen between the pages. To their credit the adults in my life all thought reading itself was a great past time. None of them were avid readers, but thought it was terrific that I liked to read. Consequently, this means there was no censorship. Certainly no one asked me about the book or its contents.

I feel pretty lucky about that now. It's not what I've done with my kids. But I'm glad no one stopped me or questioned me about what I was reading. It gave me a sense of autonomy and independence. FAREWELL THE STRANGER became my first keeper. I still have it 28 years later. Which, incidentally, is how I realized no one had actually read the book. My grandparents allowed me to keep it and never once questioned my reading it. No way they would've done that if either of them had read the book.

As it turns out, the book was part of a book club my grandparents subscribed to in the late 50's and early 60's. They received several books they never read. I also got THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne from that basement cache. That was pretty racy too. Adultery, shame, pride and a single woman's courage not to be cowed by her community. Hester suffered for her choices, but she stood up for herself and her beliefs. Pretty heady stuff for a 13 year old.

Much better than my reading experience the year before with Harold Robbins' THE CARPETBAGGERS. That book was an education let me tell you. I ended up looking up words in the dictionary that I thought were salacious and provocative. Words like larynx which I thought was another word for a woman's vagina. What can I say? I was 12. In my defense the word was in a sentence after one of the characters finds the carnage of a raid on his village and he is looking at his dead sister who had been raped. A crushed larynx...I thought it had to do with the sex bits. Imagine my surprise to find it was her throat!

Shortly following that summer, my Mom had a friend at work that was an avid reader. I was trying to find books in the library in the adult fiction section. No more kid books for me. Anyway Mom's friend read gothics, Holt, Whitney, Plaidy, Stewart. The friend (it's killing me right now because I can't remember her name!!) often had duplicates and books she didn't want and gave them to my Mom for me. A romance reader was born. Those gothics lead to my love of historicals and regencies. In my twenties I discovered Woodiwiss. I couldn't catch my breath reading SHANNA. Sex in a carriage? Wow!!

Romance reading is such a part of my life that my boys are named for romance heros. Cole after Cole Latimer in ASHES IN THE WIND by Kathleen Woodiwiss and Clayton after the Duke of Claymore in WHITNEY MY LOVE by Judith McNaught. They each have a page in their scrapbooks with the cover of the books and the story of how they got their names. They loved (not) sharing that information in second grade when you tell the class "How I got my name". They think it's funny now and are totally used to my love of reading...romance novels in particular. But when you are 8 and have to explain that your Mom got your name from a book and not your great grandfather...not so much.

My reading has gotten me through many tough times. I could escape into a book when work sucked, my Mom was sick, my brother was dying, and my kids were driving me crazy. It has provided an outlet and a respite when I dearly needed one. I can't imagine my life without reading and it just wouldn't be the same without...romance.