From YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday #130:
It takes about 12 hours to read a book, but the book spends a lot more time than that in the home, as a doorstop, a place to hide jewelry, even an old-fashioned petal press. Is there anything you do with books before/after you’ve read them?
I love the Road Trip question this week, because I’m a chronic book re-reader, so I keep the books I love very close.
But when I really, really love a book, I also buy a copy to give to the person who MUST read said book. So when my now-husband and I moved in together, we wound up with quite a few duplicates. Just one example is NORWEGIAN WOOD, the fantastic love story by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami.
This book is full of memories of True Love to me, and I still pick it up and re-read the same scene I read back then to my then auditioning-to-be-boyfriend:
So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
The scene goes on to describe an act we began to call “strawberry-shortcaking,” whereby a boy brings a girl strawberry shortcake because she asks for it, but when she changes her mind when he arrives with it, and he’s OK with this because he’d do anything for her. The clincher is of course that it must be mutual for it to be True Love, and thus our theory of “mutual strawberry-shortcaking” was born.
And now we have two well-worn copies of Norwegian Wood on our shelf. Not bad, Mr. Murakami.
There are way too many books I need to read for the first time for me to have much time to re-read books these days. At the moment, I’ve probably read the Harry Potter books more often than any other book–but that’s partly through reading them to the kids.
Nothing wrong with an extra helping of Harry Potter! 🙂
What a cute story! I love the whole “mutual strawberry-shortcaking” theory 🙂 I definitely keep my favorites close by too. I can’t help re-reading them… OFTEN.
That strawberry shortcake is a good relationship-tester. 😉
What a neat story! And I’m so glad I’m not the only person who has “those” books that she has more than one copy of, so that she can give them away at will. I think that’s one of the best things we can do as writers and readers.
Murakami is going to have to be my next author to explore. I was apparently under a rock and hadn’t heard of him before 1Q84, but since it just came out in paper yesterday, I think I’m going to get moving.
Get it! It is incredible!
Yay, another re-reader! I am always going back to books I love and going through them again. I hate having most everything in boxes right now because it means I can’t go back to my favorite scenes whenever I want to… Oh, and Murakami *love*!
Oooh, I feel your pain. We finally moved into an actual house and got ALL of our books together. *hugs books*
Yes, YES! I have doubles of the books of which I must have a lending copy handy, and almost no shelf space for the ones I can’t recommend. It’s double or nothing, baby!
Awesome–love it!
I love when books can bring people together! This is a sweet story about love and mutual interest – gotta love it! One day I shall have matching books on my bookshelf too.
Awwww. . .
Great story. Strawberry shortcaking – I love it! 😉