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Sat
13
Jan '07

The Old-Fashioned Girl

I’m cleaning out my bookshelves and finding that there are books to which I’m no longer attached, so those are going in “away” pile. But there are also books, which I love, that are in terrible shape. I have a copy of Louisa May Alcott’s The Old-Fashioned Girl (long one of my favorites) which is missing pages. This one was given to me in high school by a friend that knew that I loved old books, but I have never known what Tom says to Grandma. And yet…yet I think it’s going with me to New York.

Do you have things like that? Damaged, no rational reason for keeping, and yet precious.

6 Comments »

  • http://www.journalscape.com/maggie Maggie

    I have this damaged copy of A Wrinkle in Time that has a broken spine and is trying to lose pages. And I have my original copy of it from when I was in elementary school. But the broken one… I had given it, among some of my other favorite books, to one of my dearest friends for his birthday. He died a few months later.

    He had A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down, and Catch-22 on his nightstand. He’d been reading AWIT — I know because he left a yellow sticky note in the place where he’d left off. When taking care of his possessions, his parents gave me some of his books, including the ones I’d given to him.

    I doubt I’ll ever give that book up. Just the thought that he’d touched it and read the first third means so much to me. When I open it it’s sort of a way for me to commune with him.

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    I have this battered, pulpy copy of The Building of Jalna which was one of my grandmother Robby’s favorite books. I know exactly what you mean about feeling like communing when I read it.

  • http://www.tchansen.org Chris Hansen

    … yes, I do.

    However, I’m interested to know what is in your ‘away’ pile.

  • http://home.earthlink.net/~carpelibris/index.html Melissa Mead

    Would you like me to look up what Tom says to Grandma?

    I have multiple copes of The Secret Garden, but no way will I get rid of my Grandma’s.

    Not a book, but I have a teddy bear named Cinnamon that my other Grandma gave to me. She used to belong to my aunt. I’d guess Cinnamon’s about 50. She’s lost her fur, her face is torn beyond mending, one eye is loose, I’ve replaced her paws and given her a music box transplant…if anyone played with her the way I used to she’d fall apart-but I’m keeping her.

  • PamM

    My grade school lunchbox.

    A number of Terry Carr’s Best of the Year.

  • http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com Mary Robinette Kowal

    Mmmm…This makes me think of Lassie, my stuffed lamb. One of Mom’s friends made a lamb out of washcloths and stuffed it with pantyhose. I carried her everywhere–yes, everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go–but I carried her by the neck.

    Strangely, one of my early memories is of someone asking me what her name was and I guess it had never occurred to me that she needed one until that moment. So I said, “Lassie.” I may have thought she was a dog. Absolutely no idea how old I was in this memory.

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