Memories
May 11, 2008

Though most of you won’t be reading this until Mother’s Day is over, I am writing it the day before. My parents are now 84 and in good health for their age. But I am aware of their fragility, which is more noticeable than even five years ago. So as I prepare to drive down to see them on Sunday morning I have been revisiting memories, painfully aware they will be all I have left at a certain point.

As you can see, books and reading were an integral part of my life from early on. I was often read to by my parents until I could read for myself. I even, so I am told, perched on a chair during dinner preparations and read to my mother once I could. I don’t remember any specific books. In fact, the earliest collection I remember was the Nancy Drew series. How I loved those, the mysteries she solved, the roadster, the freedom and friends, the danger that was just dangerous enough to be exciting without being truly dangerous.

From there, I went on to nonfiction. One memory in particular stands out, and still impacts my reading choices to this day. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was the only one home, the rest of the family having gone out. New books were still serialized in magazines, and it was one of these that was in my hands as I slouched in my favorite reading chair, a big, brown imitation leather rocker. My legs swung over one arm, my back was wedged into the corner of the other side. The story was the first chapter of a true crime book about a serial killer who got into women’s apartments by pretending to be a building workman.

Bear in mind that books serialized in magazines in the early-to-mid sixties were edited. Heavily. And I presume, at least in this case, edited for content as well as length since it was a family magazine, probably Life or Look. I also knew that the killer was no longer on the streets. Still, the horror was so real to me and my tension so high that when a loud knock suddenly sounded on the front door I reacted instinctively. I screamed. flung myself out of the chair knocking over the side table and lamp. I fell, landing  on my hands and knees on the floor, gasping in terror. My heart pounded. My entire body trembled and my hands, as I pulled myself up, were shaking so hard I could scarcely hold on to the arms of the chair.

I stared at the door. Then, slowly, fearfully, I edged over, latched the chain and opened it to a slit. One eye peeked out. There stood a kid staring at me with wide-eyed wonder. “Is Casey at home?” he asked a moment later. I tried to utter the word “No,” but nothing came out so I simply shook my head. The second he turned his back to go down the steps, I  closed the door and burst into tears of relief.  

And that, my friends, is why I have never read a modern true crime book, and why BiblioBuffet does not review them.  

This week . . . 
Ex Libris is a blog that combines life and books. Sharon Goforth is a baker, a grandmother and obviously a reader who loves to share her views on the books she is reading.

This blog is particularly well set up. On the left, she has list of her current bedside books and a nice long list of lit blogs. On the right is a calendar, a map showing where her most recent visitors are located, reading challenges and ongoing projects, places to check out, a list of book shopping/swapping sites and more.

But it’s her content that is special. She is a fan of reading challenges, and talks often about her current status. Naturally, she talks about the books she is reading. What I really like about this woman is that she has such wide-ranging literary interests. For example, her most recent post concerns poetry, a genre she admits she doesn’t often read:

I don’t read a lot of poetry and don’t claim to understand it when I do read it, but there have been times when a poem has knocked me off my feet and really spoken to me.  The poem I read today was one of those . . . All I could think of is how timeless it is. This poem is as applicable today as it was in the 1940’s.  How many of us have turned a blind eye or deaf ear to those who are persecuted near us?  We have already distanced ourselves “as if centuries passed”. 

Sharing the poem in parts, comments between, brings it alive with the brilliant clarity and emotion with which Milosz originally endowed the poem. This is one blogger who writes not just with passion but with the hand of a artist. 

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren

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