BTT -- Booking through Thursday (on Friday)

The Covers


Taped Together Spines

Booking Through Thursday

1. What is most battered book in your collection? The one with loose pages, tattered corners, and page edges so soft that there's not even a risk of paper cuts anymore?

   So I emailed Deb yesterday and I was telling her that I thought this was a great question, but I couldn't think of what my most tattered book was.  And I swear that as soon as I hit "send" I thought of exactly what it was!  The set of J.R.R. Tolkien books from my Dad. 

2. Why is this book so tattered? Is it that you love it so much that you've read it a zillion times? Is it a reference book you've used every day for the last seven years? Something your new puppy teethed on when you weren't looking?

   When I was little -- like maybe 8 or 9 (although it could have been earlier, this edition was published in 1973) -- my Dad actually used to read the Hobbit out loud to me.  I remember sitting on the couch and listening to the part with Gollum and being kinda scared.  Later I took the books for myself and have since read them all over and over.   

My Dad has since passed away and this is a fond memory since I inherited my love of reading from him.  Thanks to Deb for choosing this question!  I swear Deb and I were separated at birth.  I also have a totally battered copy (the same edition, no less!) of A Little Princess somewhere around here, although my favorite book by Frances Hodgson Burnett has always been The Secret Garden.  I can't wait until Maddie starts reading these!

Comments

[--Deb]

It's so funny--Sarah Elizabeth stated FOTR as her most tattered book, too. Maybe next time around, we should ask how many people have read this series, because so far, it sure seems popular (and tattered).

And, I love The Secret Garden, too, but I always liked Sara more than Mary--I loved that she could control her temper. And in fact, there's a passage in there about how she would just look at Miss Minchin when she was being horrid, without being upset, because it showed she was stronger because she could keep her temper controlled, and I used to reread that passage over and over when I'd have trouble with my own. Basically, I wanted Mary's garden, but I wanted to BE Sara. (And I always said if I ever had a little girl, I'd name her Sara, because I liked her THAT much.)

[Kim]

I have the same set of LOTR books, and they are just as tattered, with yellow pages. The books just feel fragile, but I pull them out ever so often and re-read them. I have the Simarillon as well (or however you spell it)

[Carrie]

Can you believe I only read those books in the last five years? I was given an all-in-one, and I read it and loved it. I have since tossed it because my dear puppy Fluffy the Pit Bull chewed all 8 corners off the book and I couldn't even open it anymore.
I just read the Secret Garden a couple of months ago, for the first time. What was I reading growing up?! (Well, it was Sword of Shannara, but still, I can't believe I missed those.)
I'm pretty attached to Wind in the Willows, which I also just read last month for the first time. Dang.

[Vicki]

I have great memories of the movies of A Little Princess and Secret Garden, but have never read them. Two more to go on my list.

[Melissa]

My dad read me The Hobbit as well (and, awesomely, read it to my eldest daughter too!)

However, while I loved the Hobbit, I couldn't get into the rest of the LOTR books until after the movies came out...odd, huh?

[Rosemary C]

It is a copy of WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG by A.A. Milne (of Winnie the Pooh fame) It is a collection of poems written for his son, Christopher Robin. It was my husband's book and on the first page it is dated 1945 and there is his mother's familiar handwriting: "To our dearest little Bob on his third big birthday." He loved it to death and then our girls grew up with the poems. The binding is coming apart and there are torn pages. Now, we read it to our grandchildren and they love the poems as much as we all did.
The other "raggedy" book is Anne Morrow Lindberg's GIFT FROM THE SEA, which I read in college and have re-read every year since. I know I should buy a new copy, but it is like a comfy sweater.

Rosemary C

[Steve]

I wandered over from Pete's.

I have those paperback editions of the trilogy as well, and they're certainly my most battered books. I lost the copy of ROTK, but I still have the first two. They cover came off eventually, and when I was sixteen I used a Jingles cookies box and a Swiss Miss hot chocolate box as cover replacments. I scissored them up, made fold dents to grip around the spine, and stapled the cardboard into the binding. Still got 'em!

Runned up: a water bloated copy of The Stand. I ripped the cover in jr. high, so I used the home ec class supplies to fix it. I used tape to stiffen the rip edges, and then sewed the two cover pieces back together.

[mia]

How funny, I have the same editions of LOTR and I stole them from my mom and dad! My dad also would read the Hobbit aloud to us as kiddos!