My dear friend Ruth tagged me

With a Meme. Here are the instructions.

Books are scarce in the world. They are illegal in some provinces. They are not easily replaced, if not impossible to replace if lost in many if not most circumstances. If you can replace a book or buy one, it is usually through the black market at astronomical costs that you cannot afford. Yet you have been able to maintain one of the best collections in the world. If your entire library was about to burn up (think of the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 invading your home) and you could only have one* book to take with you other than the Bible, what would that be and why?

Simple Rules: Answer the question. Offer one quote that resonates with you. Tag five people whose response is of genuine interest to you and inform him or her that they have been tagged. Cheers!


*And it cannot be an entire series of something, that’s cheating.

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Okay, I gave this some long hard thought. It wasn't easy to figure out which ONE book I wanted to take with me. Only one book? ACK!!

Lets take this one thought at a time. I love to read, but most of the tripe I've read lately has been either mediocre horror (Sorry Stephen K., your stuff just doesn't grab me lately), self-help ("You On A Diet", etc) and since I don't want to only have reminders around that I need to lose weight, grow a set, or exercise more...none of them would be the one! My newest purchases are "how-to" books...hey, raising chickens isn't easy! So nothing new that I have would fill this sacred spot. As I go back over my own history, I find that nothing when I was in my earlier adult years will fill this quota. Recently, altho I still read every night, I've gotten lazy and tend to watch the movie rather than read the book. Well, maybe it's not so much lazy as it is because I read when I go to bed. It's the only time I have. If I were to actually be able to read a book without falling asleep 3 paragraphs in, I might have a more recent favorite. I have more bumps on my forehead from a huge, thick tome falling as I nod off than I do recently read books under my belt!

Now, with that groundwork laid, I will explain the book I'd try to save. First, here's a quote from the book...it seems to this fit this Meme.

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Of course, this is the first line in "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. It's a book I rescued from my grandmother's house just after she passed away. The chance of passing on books like this is golden. I also have "Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There". It was published by Henry Altemus, Philadelphia and the copyright date in this volume is 1896. It says inside that the book cost 50¢. But the reason I would save the other one is that on the inner cover is a bookplate printed with "Lauzentza Edwards, Her Book"...that would be my mother...and there is the childish signature, in pencil, of my grandmother on the facing page. So just those little ID references make this book priceless to me and my family.



I also love the illustrations in these books, being the "artiste" that I am. They made my imagination (which is very active anyway) just feel like I was there...right there, during the story. So I relate to Alice's feeling about pictures in a book!



I love this book. It holds many memories for me.



I remember staying with my grandmother in the summer and spending quiet, lovely days there. It would have been rather boring, had I not had my grandmother and mother's wonderful collection of books to read. I have great memories of sitting on the daybed in my grandmother's little back porch reading books like these, and reading about Mole, Rat, and Toad in "The Wind In The Willows" by Kenneth Grahame. There were so many others. Just talking about these books brings a vision in my mind of my grandmother's beautiful but tiny back yard. It was like a pastel painting of a tiny English garden where lilacs and iris bloomed and I saw all sorts of birds. I could see all of this from the daybed on her little back porch if I could pry my eyes away from what was happening in the books. The scenery all sort of fit in with Alice and Toad.

My grandmother and mother were both teachers. They both instilled a great love of books in all us kids. We're all bookies!! What a great legacy.

P.S. Thanks Ruth, it was nice to think back to those times. They were such nice gentle times. And thanks to this Meme and you, I plan to get new copies of all these books and make them my summer reading project. I will read as many as I can from my childhood! I don't want to read the old copies I have because they are pretty fragile, having survived all the way from 1896 and beyond. I always read the classics during the summer anyway, what better way to spend the reading part of my summer!

P.P.S. I'm tagging anyone who wants to play. I'd love it if Malc, Reg, Cheryl and Dawn (all lovers of the written word) would give it a go! But I also know that they are all very busy people.