I’ve collected quite a library of books over the years. Books I’ve read for school, received as gifts or heirlooms, read for review or just picked up somewhere. My library, though always too large for my bookshelves, is better curated than it used to be, thanks to my recent efforts to create a library of friends.
Not all the books I buy have a story attached to their purchase. Often I simply love the book, and want it for my own. I buy new books on a regular basis, often from the Booksmith, and every couple of weeks I come home with a used book or two from the Brattle. (And, well, when Borders was closing, I may or may not have hit the sales at least once a week. Ahem.)
But in my travels I’ve picked up a few books that serve a dual purpose: they are mementos of days in faraway places, of hours spent browsing on foreign shelves and shores. I love the words in their pages, but I also love the things themselves, the tangible reminders of specific experiences, of the person I was when I bought them. Here, for your pleasure, a tour:
It’s no secret I’m in love with Oxford, England – a literary city par excellence. I’ve got so many books from its bookshops (Oxfam, Blackwells – I love ’em all), but these are some of my favorites:
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is a book I discovered in Oxford, and I spent the year buying up every copy I could find in used bookshops and sending them back home to friends. I even (accidentally) bought myself an extra copy after panicking that I’d given them all away.
I found this advance copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in the Oxfam bookshop on Turl Street, a couple of months before its publication. It was the first ARC I’d ever read, and I was thrilled to be “in the know” about a book – and such a beautiful book! – before it was published.
I’d read the Harry Potter series after my first semester in Oxford (thanks to Val), but hadn’t bought them – so I collected the whole series from charity shops during my year there as a graduate student. I love the British editions, and they are a happy, colorful reminder of Oxford on my bookshelves.
Oxford Sketchbook was my going-away present to myself – I bought it before I left Oxford, so I could carry its gorgeous watercolor drawings back across the ocean with me.
This isn’t exactly a bookshop, but St Giles’ Church in Oxford runs a book-and-magazine stall outside its doors, and I found an old copy of Pride & Prejudice there for a pound. Yes, please.
During my first semester in Oxford, I found this little green volume in a bookshop in York. Gorgeous, no? All kinds of love poems, arranged topically in such quaint sections as “Love’s Tragedies” and “Love With Many Lyres.” And at another bookshop there, I found this lovely edition of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The ACU Century may never be a best-seller, but it’s the first book I ever had a hand in making (by which I mean writing, editing, research and hours of proofreading). It was published in 2006 to celebrate my university’s centennial year, and the process of putting it together was fabulous on-the-job training and a heck of a lot of fun. And it’s signed by all my beloved coworkers from ACU Creative Services.
I totally missed Shakespeare & Company the first time I went to Paris – so I was determined not to miss it the next time. I went twice, and was rewarded with the perfect vintage edition of The Two Towers, helping to fulfill my Lord of the Rings quest.
The following April, also at Shakespeare & Co., I found this darling edition of 84 Charing Cross Road, written (appropriately enough) by an American in love with an English bookshop.
I’ve bought lots of books at the Brattle since I moved to Boston, but Daddy-Long-Legs was the first, and is still one of the prettiest.
Ten Novembers ago, in the wake of 9/11, I toured the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on a school trip, and bought this collection of Advent readings from its beautiful gift shop. I still pull it out every year.
What books do you treasure as souvenirs? I’d love to hear your stories.
cakes, tea and dreams 
I have read many of these myself – thanks for reminding me of some great reads! I, too, have the British versions of the Harry Potter books, and just love them. But I’ve never seen The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – can’t wait to find a copy and devour it!
These are some beautiful books and memories, Katie-bird. My cherished favorites are a collection of readers (with the most wonderful Old Book Smell EVER) that belonged to my mother when she was young, and the many editions of Le Petit Prince floating around my shelves. Of some books, one just can’t have too many. 🙂
When I was nine I went to England for the first time, and bought Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights at the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth. My mom forbade me to read them “till I was older” but when we got home I sneakily read them without her knowledge. Whenever I see them on my shelves, I think first of England, and second of my sneaky nine year old self. 🙂
I also have a lot of books I bought while studying abroad in France. I love them on my shelves, because the names run up the spine, instead of down the way English titles too. It’s funny how I realized that for the first time– I was browsing a French bookshop and my neck was really sore, and I realized that I was tilting my head the opposite way you normally would in a bookstore.
Oh I could go on, but this comment is long enough. I think I may steal your thought and write a post of my own on this, such a nice idea!
This is simply not fair, Katie. I’m now lusting over your books. On the other hand, I’m inspired to write about my own memento books. So there’s that.
LOVE this. My sister and I both adored 84 Charing Cross Road as kids, and I think it’s an under-read and under-appreciated book! I have so many I couldn’t begin to list. In fact my daughter was recently clearing out her bookshelves, and showed me a stack to which I responded in horror: “All of these?” She’d read them already, she told me with a shrug. SO? Don’t you have favorites you want to keep, treasure, worship? I’m not sure she’s my daughter anymore. xo
Jane Austen is my favorite!
-grace
http://herumbrella.com
Such a terrific idea for a post, Katie. One day, I’d love to browse through your books. I feel that not being able to collect the copies and leaf through the covers is one of the biggest downsides of the Kindle and other e-readers (even though I own one and love it for enabling me to read in English in parts of the world where a variety of English books is hard to find).
Also, this reminds me of Ann Fadiman’s book “Ex-Libris”, in which she talks about people’s relationship to their books. The first chapter asks the question: What do you do when you and your loved one move in and the marriage of the books needs to take place? It is insightful, hilarious and ever so sweet and I think you’d enjoy it.
I am extremely jealous of those HP’s and Winnie the Pooh editions!