Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Book Blogger Hop (June 29-July 5, 2012)

Book Blogger Hop
The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jen at Crazy For Books.  Please visit her site for complete rules as well as some great content. 

I'm very late to the Hop this week, but I really liked this question.

Do you have a keeper shelf for books you loved? What books are on that shelf and why?

I don't have a lot of room for books, so what I keep has to be pretty special.  As some of  you may have guessed, I have kept a lot of my Charles de Lint books.  The ones I know that are on my keeper shelf are his Newford Series and Memory and Dream which is one of my favorite CDL titles. 

Another series of books that are very dear to me are Evangeline Walton's Mabinogian Tetraology, which re-tells the Welsh mythology cycle.  These stories captured my imagination as well as my heart.  What I found interesting about these books is that they were first published in the 1930's (they were later re-released in the 1970's) but they read like they could have been written yesterday.  If you've ever wondered about the Fleetwood Mac song Rhiannon, these books will shed some light on the question.

Other books that I will never get rid of are the Borderland books, a collection of short stories edited by Teri Windling and also some books by other authors about a town on the edge of Faery.  What is cool about the Borderland concept is that the landscape and rules are the same in all these stories.  So as a reader, you are familiar with the town, the dangers and even some of the characters. 

The other books that I keep are the ones that have been signed by my favorite authors such as Robert McCammon, Joe Hill and Brenna Yovanoff. I also have a copy of The Stand (the unedited version) by Stephen King that I won't get rid of.  (Not signed...yet!)

All of the books above have had a profound effect on me and I often wish *I* had written them...or at least just one. 

Have you heard of any of the books I mentioned?  What are some books that you see yourself keeping forever?


7 comments:

Lindz said...

Yes, I keep a few Classics,

Thanks for your comment and very nice post

Karen said...

I have a few marked up books that I won at a charity auction. (It's like a director's cut except the authors write notes in their books)

A few are my favorite books and others are books I never heard of but fell in love with the author's notations.

I have a few of my favorite series - especially if I was able to get the signed.

jelai♥ said...

are these classical books?. Looks like one ;-)

fakesteph said...

I've never even considered the fact that some people don't keep all their books. I feel silly now. But I'm glad you kept books that are special to you. I have a shelf of all my favorites. :)

Jon said...

Loved Evangeline Walton's stuff when I read it years ago - might have to re-read it one of these days. Another good reason to hang on to great books. The Borderlands stuff was also great.

Jenny said...

I haven't heard much about any of these, but the Welsh mythology one sounds really interesting - I'm a huge fan of all things mythology! I don't have a keeper shelf necessarily, but you can tell my absolute favorites by the creases in their spines - I don't like to crease spines, but the ones I read most all have multiple from so much use:)

Midnyte Reader said...

@Karen- I love seeing how and why an author writes something. As well as a songwriter too.

@Jela - I'm not sure if these are considered classics by anyone but me.

@Steph - Ha, that's funny. I used to keep all mine, but then I had no more room.

@Jon-She has a book on King Arthur that I liked and another one called Witch House that was enjoyable too.

@Jenny-The Welsh mythology books are amazing. And yeah, my favorite books look like they have been through the ringer, no matter how careful I am with them.

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