November Photo A Day Challenge - Day 5

Topic of the Day

 

is

 

"Well-Worn Book"


and most loved

 

 

 

Just a Book?? And Time for a Give-Away

The Winner of the Book Give-Away is Kari Wainwright.

Kari - send me (barleykw at appstate dot edu) your address and I'll put your copy of

Susan Isaacs' AS HUSBANDS GO

in the mail

Congratulations!  and thanks very much for playing - it was fun!

I'm a lover of books.

But, to me - there are books and then there are books.

Some are special simply because of what they are. Books which have, in some way, touched me.  Touched me deeply enough that's it's important to me to have them close by.   A couple of books falling into this category are "Five Smooth Stones" by Ann Fairbairn, and "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows to name just two.  Two of the books that will, as my friend Nan says, go to the old folks' home with me.

A few weeks ago, I heard from BookPage that I had won 10 books for responding to one of their questions.  That was a bunch of fun.  The books arrived  -  brand new.  Most of them nice hardcover books.  Some of them are books I've already read, some of them I already own.  All of them what I would call very good books.  But - "just books."  They'll make wonderful gifts for friends and family.  And, I love that.  I love books and I love giving books to people I care about.  And sometimes I have give-aways here.  Come to think of it, I haven't done that in a long time - it may be time to do that.  Like now!

Just leave a comment and I'll toss it into my virtual hat.  I'll draw a name on Sunday and I'll come back and post that name at the top of this blog entry.  If you see your name, send me an email with your snail mail address and I'll send you a first edition hardcover copy of Susan Isaacs "As Husbands Go," which received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.   

There I went off on one of my tangents . . .

Back to the subject at hand . . .

On the other hand  -  - 

         some books are quite special (to me) for yet another reason.

A couple weeks ago, I dropped my name in someone else's virtual hat to win a prize in a contest an author was having.  It was one of my favorite authors - and I already have all her books.  But the prize was one of her books personalized and autographed.  And I won!  And I was over the moon!  Yes, it's a book I already have, but that one doesn't have a nice note written in it from her to me.  The one she sent me is a book that will stay right here.  Always.  The other one that I'd already bought and read can now move along to a friend's house, but not the personalized one.  No siree.  That one joins a group of much treasured books that I will cherish forever.  Because instead of "just a book," each of those autographed books move into the realm of  "quite special."  They're books with a personal sentiment, memory, and/or story to go along with being "just a book."

I was surprised during a recent discussion at the blog where this contest was taking place when someone said they didn't understand why some people felt the urge, or the need, to have a book autographed.  They just wanted the book.  The author's signature didn't matter to them in the least.  And I've heard this sentiment expressed in discussions at DorothyL.

It floors me.

Now, I know I'm not the only person who loves having books around that have been signed by the author.  That notion can be easily validated by simply going to a book-signing event at a bookstore or a library.  People are there to see, and perhaps meet, an author whose work they admire.  They're there to have a book signed.

Laws, go to a book convention and witness how many people are willing to stand in long lines to have their books signed by their favorite literary heroes. 

But, obviously - there are a lot of folks who are just as happy with "just the book."

So now I'm curious and I'm hoping some of you will drop by to tell me how you feel about this.

If you're a book lover, do your signed books mean more to you than "just the book," or does it just not matter a whit one way or the other?

Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books

Patti Abbott has a wonderful thing she does at her blog, pattinase, every Friday. Its called Friday's Forgotten Books.

Here's my entry for Patti's Friday's Forgotten Books today.

My all time very favorite book ever is a forgotten book that keeps coming back to life like the Phoenix. Published originally in 1966, reissued in the 80s,and about to be reissued again by The Chicago Review Press. But. It isn't really a forgotten book. At least, not by anyone who ever read it. Its one ofthose books that once read, will become a book you'll push on all your friends and insist they read. And one reading is never enough. I can't even begin to guess or remember how many times I've read it. Or how many copies I've bought and given as gifts. FIVE SMOOTH STONES was written by Ann Fairbairn. The basic plot is a simple story of a young black child, David Champlin, being raised by his grandparents in New Orleans in the 60s. Going on to college with the help of an extraordinary man who befriends David’s grandfather, and then David himself. And finally, belatedly joining the civil rights movement. The premise sounds pat, over-done, formulaic, and sappy. However this book is anything but simple or formulaic or any of those other things. This is an exquisitely written, powerful story about love, honor, relationships and the willingness to stand up for beliefs. The relationship between the elderly grandparents and the young boy is one of the most touching story lines ever written. While David is a memorable character, his grandfather is even more memorable. An indelible character who will wrap himself around your heart and once there, will live there forever. As David's story progresses, we meet a host of some of the most enduring characters found in literature. Friendships are formed and forged that \will last a lifetime. We meet people who live honest, good lives with high moral standards, never faltering in their beliefs, or in their willingness to fight for those beliefs, or in their deep abiding love and trust in one another, during one of the most turbulent, heart breaking periods of American history. And topping it all off is a love story that will break your heart, and then have it soaring to the heavens. David Champlin and Sara Kent's story will never leave you. I dislike using the word "powerful" while describing a book, 'cause I think its overused and therefore somewhat lacking as a true descriptor, but I can't seem to come up with a word that works any better or even as well, so powerful it is. I'm going to do something a little different here, and refer everyone reading this to the reviews of FIVE SMOOTH STONES on amazon.com. There are, as of this writing, 91 reviews. 85 of which were given Five Stars. They've been written over a time span of ten years, and most of the people doing the reviews were people who did something I myself have done for years - seek this book out in any form available to buy to give to someone they care about. It was a groundbreaking novel in 1966, but one which, I believe, has stood the test of time, and done so quite elegantly.

Ann Fairbairn, whose real name was Dorothy Tait, was born in Cambridge, MA and attended the Leland Powers School in Boston. She worked in newspapers, television and radio and as publicity director for music groups. "Five SmoothStones" (1966), a Literary Guild selection in 1967, won her an enthusiastic following in the United States and abroad. She also wrote "That Man Cartwright"(1970), "Call Him George" (under the pseudonym Jay Allison Stuart in 1960), a biography about New Orleans jazz clarinetist George Lewis, and was in the process of writing a third novel at the time of her death. Fairbairn died apparently of a heart attack at age 70 in February 1972 (from the Boston Globe11/14/1994). Not much information can be found about this amazing woman who's life was threatened after writing FIVE SMOOTH STONES under a pseudonym. Oh my, how I wish she had lived long enough to have finished that third novel, and a fourth, and maybe even a fifth. I think she would have, over time, joined the ranks of great writers.