Book treasure...
Some avid readers stick to the bestseller lists. Others get recommendations from friends or zip online to download the latest big buzz ebook. As satisfying as that is, there are times we want more. We haunt bookstores and libraries. We drift past shelves, thumbing through a volume here and there. Its an elusive sort of hope. We're craving a once-in-a-blue-moon book. That can mean a book rare in topic or scope or quality. Sometimes it is a book that simply suits you well, reviving old interests or sending you off in a refreshing new direction. If you're quite lucky, it somehow manages to fit those all of those descriptions at once.
This is how such a book fell into my hands...
It is said that southerners have a particular attachment to place. Certainly when I moved to Northern California in 2008, I despaired that I didn't have personal connections there. Thus it was quite a pleasant discovery to connect with my cousin, Marci, who it turned out lived only twenty miles away. (My maternal grandmother was a half-sister to Marci's dad.) We enjoyed meeting soon after Eli was born, but sadly it wasn't until the spring before I left that I realized Marci is actually a kindred spirit.
Like me, Marci likes shopping in unusual places, trying new foods, and travel. And she, too, is a huge bibliophile. In fact, both of us have public library backgrounds. Every time we met up, she gifted us with stacks of gently used books. Since we moved to Georgia, more than once we've had a fresh shipment of Marci books. (Bless her, one box even included the See's Candies I can't get on the East Coast. Does it get any better than pleasure reading paired with nostalgia chocolate?!)
In my pile of Marci loot, there were familiar books such as The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter. But there were also volumes such as William Saroyan's World War Two homefront novel The Human Comedy and Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. I quickly realized Marci has a knack for finding older books still well worth reading.
Then in the latest box I found treasure indeed. I'd already been rereading my stash of cookbooks and the Jane Brocket books (mentioned in my post about marmalade), all based on children's literature. On my morning walks I'd begun musing that if my career could be something like a cat, one of my nine lives might be to study children's literature. Imagine my joy when I discovered in Marci's box a little green hardback with an English cottage on the cover entitled How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger.
Ever have one of those books that you find yourself reading slower and slower because you just don't want it to end? Bodger made her journey in 1958, sharing the experiences with her librarian/historian husband as well as their nine year-old son and two year-old daughter. At the time, many of the sites were largely unchanged and Bodger was even able to meet authors now gone, asking them some of the very questions I'd also wondered. This travelogue is richly flavored with history and literature, but also a childlike sense of wonder. Bodger wrote in such a way that I could picture the moors, the thatched cottages, and sunsets over the Lake Country. Such a treat to read!
Thankfully, once this particular book was finished, it pointed the way to more and more and more books. The small stack you see in the photo above is just a beginning. Between Bodger and Brocket, I've been making book lists, searching libraries, filling my Kindle with free out-of-copyright titles, and shopping with online out-of-print booksellers. I now have a large map of the British Isles hanging in my office and I'm poring through written histories of England. I'm starting to understand more about British history, which naturally connects to world history, but also my own genealogy.
In a nutshell, ever since I'd read my first Narnia books, I've been in love with British children's literature and How the Heather Looks was both water and sunshine to that seed. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what all will grow from this big reading project. I'm compiling a master list of books -- both classics and forgotten treasures -- that I plan to share with Eli (as long as he is interested). Thanks to Brocket and Bodger, we're already halfway through Paddington Bear's adventures. But I want more than that.
On our London honeymoon, Brian and I decided we'd return someday. Each year on our anniversary, we read our travel diaries aloud and wax nostalgic. This year, however, we actually started a travel savings account to make that dream a reality. By the time Eli is old enough to appreciate and remember what he sees, we'll have the funds to show him some of the places where great Children's literature took place, but also a land soaked in history from the Celts to crusader's castles to Shakespeare to Churchill.
In the meantime, I'll be reading and learning so I can be a good tour guide. Part of my plans include projects to uncover more family roots, which are almost exclusively in the British Isles. I'm fascinated by how many ties there are between the American South and the British Isles both in my family tree and the history books. Most of all, I'm mulling over writing projects inspired and informed by what I'm reading.
Off I go to read and daydream...
(Many thanks, Marci!)
For more about the British Reading Adventure including previous posts and a book list, click HERE.
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