Books from your distant past

Since I joined LT I’ve been gradually adding books that I read long before LT even existed, as well as current and recently read. I’ve always had an extensive library and am a prolific reader. So it’s been fun and enlightening to catalog my library, and by “my library” I mean all the books I’ve ever owned even if I’ve since lost or given them away.

By looking up authors and recommendations from other members, I’ve discovered books that I loved at the time, but had since forgotten about.

Today I remembered Gormenghast. How could I have forgotten it? And now it’s come to mind, I even remember where I was when I was reading it, and other details.

I remember reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I’d picked it up at a youth hostel in India in 1971, an old and battered paperback. And my first Thomas Hardy. But the reason I remember the physical detail, is that when I got to the end, I realised the last several pages were missing. Pre-Google, pre ebooks, there was no way of buying another copy, I eventually finished Tess decades later.

Here I am at the Taj Mahal actually reading my first Thomas Hardy novel ..

Thanks for reminding me of Gormenghast and also of the frustration of reading books where pages were missing, especially when in a place where there were no convenient public libraries where one could find another copy. And thanks for the photo from a different era.

While teaching in Uganda back in the seventies I read anything I could get my hands on, and I recall finding in my school's meagre library a rather battered complete set (no pages missing!) of Winston Churchill's multi-volume The Second World War, which I read avidly.

My granddaughter found a 1948 copy of Pride and Prejudice on my book shelf a few weeks ago.

I lived on a coffee plantation in Colombia in the mid 1970s. I rarely got any new books to read, except when we went to the city, and I could pick up some pulp science fiction in Spanish, or once, at a college bookstore, D.H. Lawrence in English.

I met an American at some point, and I begged him to give me the book that he read on the plane. Reluctantly, he did. It was P.S. Your Cat is Dead, and it was like a tall drink of cool water in the desert.

>4 vwinsloe: That was nice of him.

I finished listening to Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne yesterday on You Tube. I first read it in Jr. High in the 1950s.

>5 mnleona: Very!

Runway Zero Eight was a paperback I purchased in 6th grade as one of the offerings of the Teen-Age Book Club. This was a monthly 4 page flyer which listed new paperback books for sale. The teacher would collect the money and the orders which were then sent off and in due time a box came back with new books to read.

I read and re-read that paperback and when I grew to man's estate I decided I wanted a hardback copy. This was pre-internet so it did take awhile to find one. Over the years the hardback too has been read and re-read. Every time I read it, I'm in that plane sweating out every second and wondering if we're going to make it...

"Well, let's see if I can send out a distress call. What's our flight number?" "714." "Right. Here goes, then." He pressed the button on his microphone. "Mayday, mayday, mayday," he began in an even voice. It was one signal he could never forget. He had called it one murky October afternoon above the French coast with the tail of his Spitfire all but shot off, and two Hurricanes had mercifully appeared to usher him across the Channel like a pair of solicitous old aunts. "Mayday, mayday, mayday," he continued. "This is Flight 714, Maple Leaf Air Charter, in distress. Come in, anyone. Over." He caught his breath as a voice responded immediately over the air. "Hullo, 714. This is Vancouver. We have been waiting to hear from you. Vancouver to all aircraft: this frequency now closed to all other traffic. go ahead, 714."

>9 alco261: sounds perfectly lovely!

The first non-reader, chapter book I can remember reading from my teacher's library is Pipi Longstocking. I read it again and again as I did all the Little House on the Prairie books. When I was a pre-teen I checked Valley of the Dolls out of the library, thinking it was about dolls!

>10 Tess_W: I checked Valley of the Dolls out of the library, thinking it was about dolls!

Reminds me how, much later in life, someone told me about Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and said I might like it because it was about railroads. I had never heard of either the book or the author. On reading it I was very disappointed to discover that it was actually about nonsensical right wing political ideology, even if it did contain railroads as well!

>11 John5918: Many years ago I had a variation on your theme which involved my son. Somehow, on his own, he learned to read by the time he was 3. He didn't necessarily understand everything he read but he had no trouble reading anything.

At the time my wife had taken up reading romance novels. My son noticed most of the covers featured a couple locked in an embrace and usually kissing. He took to calling these books "kissing books." One day he asked me if I read "kissing books" and I told him I didn't. A few evenings later, when my wife and I were in bed doing our usual bedtime reading, he marched into the bedroom and, with the extreme confidence of the very young , announced Dad DID read "kissing books." I asked him how he knew and he replied. "Because you have The Romance of the Rails on your train book shelf!" (....So there - :-) )

Rereading an old favorite at the mo', A Canticle for Leibowitz, ca 1961, though I first read it mid 1970s.

>13 nohrt4me2: I loved that one! I read it in the mid '70's, too - once for fun and once for a college class. I'm probably due for a reread!

>14 Hope_H: I am enjoying it!

>14 Hope_H: It sounded familiar to me! I realize it is on my wishlist! I will have to get it next. Thank you!

>9 alco261: on my WL that goes!

>18 Tess_W:

Me too! I was trying to find it free on Kindle but looks like I'll have to pay.

>19 John5918: Why not get ebooks from your local library and read them in the Libby app. That’s what I do now I’m retired

>20 kjuliff:

We don't have local libraries here! If I lived in UK I would certainly be borrowing real rather than e-books, but much as I prefer real books, I have to rely on ordering e-books for my Kindle, unless someone is coming out from UK who can bring me a hard copy.

>21 John5918: oh I’m sorry. Am in the US. I should have checked your profile. I wonder if there’s any other way but assume you have looked into it.

I still have it!

>23 2wonderY: I read the entire series when I was young. Don't ever know what happened to the books when I left home. I suspect my mother threw them away when her and dad moved. However, she did purchase me the first five again from an antique store as a Christmas gift.

>24 Tess_W: That was a nice gift.