Paperback Ponderings
By Sarah McCoy | February 23, 2016 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Craig Sunter
I’ve had paperbacks on my mind this month with the release of my third novel The Mapmaker’s Children in trade edition. One of my favorite things to do when on travel is to check out a city’s local antiquarian shop and quarry the shelves for forgotten book gems. All of which, I recently noted, were hardbacks. It makes logical sense that paperbacks would have a difficult time withstanding the wear, tear, and eras. After all, paper by its definition is made of organic materials—perishable like all of nature’s creations.
When I was very young, I found what I coined “the most perfect acorn in all the earth’s forests” behind our military barracks. We’d just moved from Germany where I’d heard tales of the sacred oak tree but lived in the city, so I never got to see the fabled oak seed before that day. It seemed a wondrous discovery. Firstly, it was very large—the width of a quarter, which by acorn standards is epic. Secondly, all the other acorns on the ground were cracked, misshapen, dirty, and half-eaten by forest critters. My acorn was pristine and shiny as if it’d been polished with butter. I carried that darling nut home and put it in my treasure box where it stayed faithfully for decades.
Married and about to move across the country to Texas, I took my childhood mementos from my parents. One of those being my treasure box. I wish I could say I opened it to find all my precious items as pristine as the day I collected them, but no. My acorn had been the victim of a long-ago bug feast. It was pocked with holes, cracked open, and brittle. I mourned for a beat then decided that the acorn had a very special life in my life. It hadn’t been ravaged by a toothy squirrel or been left to rot in the wet marshes. It’d been cared for and loved by a little girl who saw magic in the ordinary.
I assume we don’t find paperbacks from the early 1900s for precisely this reason: they are ephemeral. In truth, paperbacks are the titles passed from literal hand to hand; the books that bring readers together in groups to cry into, spill their coffees on, and swat away intruding summer gnats. They are the books of the everyday, right? Just as history only records the major events, the quiet routines are simply… lived until they are gone. But aren’t those the ultimate zeitgeist of a time? Being a history geek, I took to the archives for answers.
*****
In the beginning (a very biblical start but hey, the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed so it seems befitting), books were expensive luxuries. They were designed with rigid covers to protect the delicate pages within. Paperbacks came into vogue across Europe in the 19th century and made their way onto American shelves in the 1930s. Penguin and New American Library were the primary publishers of mass, lower-costing paperbacks. These were intended to introduce older texts to the next generation of readers who couldn’t afford hardbacks. Suddenly, the everyman could have an extravagance right in his or her palm. The popularity soared. Additionally, during World War II, reading became not just a means of education, but a prominent leisure activity. Publishers needed a cost-efficient way to supply demand during the war shortages. The paperback was the answer, and for many today, still is.
I’ve had it explained to me like the film industry. The hardback copy being equivalent to seeing a movie at the theater and the paperback being the DVD or streaming download. Life is busy, and we can’t all make it out to the theater. But given the opportunity to have a viewing in our living rooms, we jump to order! Of course, there are many who are faithful to the intrinsic artistic experience: seeing a film on the big screen in theater-style seating with a handful of fresh popcorn. Similarly, there are bookaphiles who want the limited quantities of hardback first editions for their libraries. How a reader chooses to engage with literature is entirely subjective and copy sales (hardback versus paperback) are more a concern of the publishers. What remains eternally the same across formats is the writing— the story.
Like my childhood acorn, paperbacks may not last for a hundred years, but while they are abundantly available and in our hands… Oh, what treasures! There’s magic in their routine paper and ink. Don’t you agree?
[coffee]
SARAH McCOY is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the novels Mustique Island, Marilla of Green Gables; The Mapmaker’s Children;The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central;The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico; and Le souffle des feuilles et des promesses(Pride and Providence). Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post, and other publications. She hosted the NPR WSNC Radio monthly program “Bookmarked with Sarah McCoy” and previously taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with her husband, Brian, an orthopedic sports surgeon, her dog, Gilly, and her cat, Tutu.
Thanks for this great piece, Sarah. I grew up on paperbacks. I couldn’t afford to buy hardcover books. There’s nothing better than visiting an old bookstore with creaky wooden floors and finding a paperback edition of a book you loved. It’s like finding the perfect acorn. Here’s hoping paperbacks survive in this brave new world of publishing.
Thank you, CG! I couldn’t afford to buy hardcover books either, so I made excellent use of my library membership to check them out. My home shelves were lined with paperbacks I swapped at school. They had a program for students to buy from and exchange with our local Scholastic carnival that would come round. One of my favorite elementary events– the Scholastic catalog party!
Thanks again for chiming in!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Sarah, as I was reading this, I was picturing my beloved paperback copy of the Once and Future King. I must have been twelve when I got it, and those tales of King Arthur changed me forever. The love of myth and magic that book ignited in me still burns brightly. Plus it was just the right size for reading under the covers with a flashlight! Thanks for this wonderful post.
Absolutely. The mighty paperback was the perfect camper’s companion– in bed or in the wild! I love envisioning you under your tented covers with a flashlight reading your books. Thanks for being part of our paperback pondering, Susan!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Beautiful, Sarah. For some reason I prefer paperbacks, probably because they are more friendly to hold. But I also love the wear and tear of a book; it shows the amount of love it has received. Dogeared and underlined pages, coffee cup rings on the cover, perhaps a chunk of wavy pagers caused by a brief dip in a bubble bath.
Crows feet (I keep telling myself) indicate millions of eye-smiles. Gently battered paperbacks indicate the number of times a reader has taken the journey of that story.
I loved your acorn treasure. xo!
And I love your “crows feet” analogy. It is the perfect description of how to *read* a paperback–the words and the story of the wear and tear on the pages. I have a paperback of Romeo & Juliet from high school that has purple lipstick smeared across the cover from being thrown into my 16-year-old’s backpack. Oh, the 90’s. And oh, the memories that copy holds. I wouldn’t trade it for a eBook or fancy collector’s hardback for the world.
BTW, how are you, sister? Feels like an eternity since we were together at the writers retreat at Mt. Hood. Where has the time gone?
Hugs to you, Sarah.
[Another] Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Ah, childhood treasures! I really enjoyed your musings on the paperback. I prefer them because they are easier to hold and carry about, not to mention, affordable. It is with sadness I finally parted with my mother’s copy of Magnificent Obsession — it literally fell apart. Many of my own books are in paperback that kids buy at book fairs. I know they won’t last in their hands but how sweet it is to know they are enjoying my words.
I totally agree, Vijaya. Paperbacks are the adult bookworm’s truest childhood treasures. The words are the same–paperback, hardback to digital. The story is there waiting for readers to come and enjoy in whatever mode that pleases.
So glad you enjoyed my post. Thank you!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
One of my prized possessions from childhood was the Ballantine Books boxed set of Lord of the Rings paperbacks, given to me by my sixth grade teacher. When you put them together, they created a complete version of a mural by Barbara Remington. The image supposedly befuddled and irritated Tolkien, but I loved it, for the familiar association with story, if nothing else. Tolkien also supposedly strongly objected to his series being published in so “degenerate a form” as paperbacks. Seems he ended up coming to terms with it (I’d guess that the series’ US sales skyrocketing in paperback might have gone some way to convincing him).
Anyway, I left my treasure on my original favorites shelf, above my bed in the house I grew up in. When I heard the movies were coming out, back in 2000, I went to retrieve it, only to find the entire shelf stripped bare – books, comic books, everything gone. “Where are all my books?” I roared to my mother. “Oh, I sold all of that sort stuff in garage sales over the years.”
I suppose there’s nothing quite so perfectly ephemeral as a collectible box set in the empty nest of a garage-sale mom. I hope they were discovered and/or loved again and again.
Vaughn,
I have a boxed set from 1976. I found it in a funky little bookstore in Princeton. A prized possession for sure!!
Bwaha! Oh, this is hilariously *not* funny. My mom and your mom are two peas in a pod. My treasure box would’ve been on a garage sale table for a buck if I didn’t come collect it before I moved to Texas. My momma doesn’t abide by “junk clutter,” even if my worm-eaten acorn was far from junk or clutter in my humble opinion. I took my adolescent paperback novels with me when I moved into my first apartment (pre-marriage) because I knew they might end up as kindle in my momma’s big fireplace. ;)
That said, she’s come a long way since back then. She shares my affinity for books as a principal of an elementary school. We have an entire basement wall that’s been turned into a children’s picture book ‘library’… and those are just the overflow that she can’t fit in her school office.
I think she may even have a Lord of the Rings collection! I’ll have to check the dates on those when I go home next.
Thanks for sharing your ‘acorn’ story, Vaughn. I loved it!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Some more history: In the early Fifties Ballantine Books pioneered the *original* paperback, a book that had not previously been published in hardcover but we first available as a low-priced paperback.
Original paperbacks became a means for authors to grow an audience, and perhaps to graduate into hardcover. This was the state of the industry when I entered it in 1977 as an editorial assistant at Dell.
Paperback romances, science fiction/fantasy, horror and mysteries were all a thriving (sometimes) in mass-market paperback. So it continued into the Eighties and through the Nineties.
In the last decade and a half, though, things have changed. The rising price of mass-market paperbacks lowered their perceived value. Why buy a flimsy book at $8.99 when you can get a more durable trade paperback at $14.99? Or maybe a hardcover at a steep discount at Costco? Then came e-books: $2.99, $1.99, $.99 or free. Heck, if you want a quick, inexpensive, enjoyable read–if you are a voracious romance reader, say–why pay for a paperback at all?
Conversely, if you are a reader who wants a deeply immersive reading experience, especially for $25, hardcover is your guarantee (sometimes) of a “quality” read.
What does all this mean for authors? It means that the traditional format and price point for genre writing is no longer available. Good genre writers are forced into the brutally Darwinian world of the Kindle bookstore.
Meanwhile, editors at the Big Five know that for $25 book consumers are not going to be satisfied with pulp-level writing. Hardcover readers still want great stories, true, but they want them wrapped in a book that reads like a “novel”, or what they perceive that to be.
That is the point I was making in a post here on WU in February 2014, a post which got me excoriated by the indie author crowd. In craft terms, it’s the awareness that underlies my book “Writing 21st Century Fiction”, which is about the melding on commercial storytelling and literary writing in the 21st Century–and how to do that.
I miss the mass-market paperback heyday but that is no longer the world we live in. And as you say, Sarah, since paperbacks are perishable we will see those great original paperbacks increasingly less. We might read them in e-pub format but if we’re like you–and me–we’ll be fishing in bins at book barns and, smiling, reeling in reading gems from a golden heyday.
Thanks for this post. Made me nostalgic this morning.
Thanks for this industry overview, Don. I had hoped that US publishing would follow the UK model, with fewer hardcovers of a title in print — mostly for libraries and collectors — with the greater majority of the title coming out in trade paper. This seemed to suit certain writers — and readers — quite well. But the cost of hardcovers has accelerated the blockbuster phenomenon at major publishers, with small houses picking up some of the trade paper authors, and the rest migrating to the indie route.
The market still seems to be shaking out, but the trend you identified seems more and more likely to prevail. And persist.
Mette and I have a favorite used bookstore in Izmir, favored by US military families stationed there for NATO before the HQ moved. There are a gazillion Clive Cussler and J.D. Robb potboilers, of course, but I’ve also found some great Kafka, Twain, and Simenon titles — as well as Jane Burroway’s Raw Silk!
And thanks, Sarah, for bringing up this topic. I think every reader has a special place in his or her heart for paperbacks.
They certainly do have a special place in our hearts, David. I couldn’t agree more. Also, you brought back such beautiful memories for me… I’m the daughter of a career Army man and grew up on forts where the USOs and MWRs had the *best* used book swap meets. So many gems and yes, they were/are paperback paloozas. From Germany to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, they were my some of my favorite “shopping” places. I hadn’t thought of those military stores in years. Thank you for bringing those memories back!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Don and David,
Between both of you fine gentlemen, I got a course in Paperback History 101 here–and I loved it! Again, my penchant for facts and the development of a product/industry/person from past to present fascinates me.
“… we’ll be fishing in bins at book barns and, smiling, reeling in reading gems from a golden heyday.” This gave me a happy sigh, Don. Yes, we shall, and perhaps we’ll even bump elbows in one of those book barns. I hope Fate is so kind. I’d love to meet a fellow paper and glue devotee.
Thank you for sharing with us, Don!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Great post, Sarah.
I must admit, I am a fan of my hardcover collection, but the price of paperback is definitely attractive.
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Thank you for chiming in, Denise! I love both. But like I said in my post, the hardbacks seem to have an easier time with all the packing and moving of a military child turned military spouse. I’ll admit (to gasps I’m sure) that I’m not an eBook reader. My eReader lost battery power 4 years ago and I’ve simply been to lazy to plug it back in. ;)
Cheers,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Hi Sarah. Thanks for sharing a thoughtful trip down Memory Lane.
I know your focus is on print, but I don’t think any discussion of books these days can omit some mention of ebooks.
“What remains eternally the same across formats is the writing, the story.” Is this really true? I would argue that to some degree, the delivery system affects the reader. The psychology of ownership, the solid weight of a hardbound book in one’s hands vs a paperback vs an ebook read on a Kindle can influence how a story means for us.
As others at Writer Unboxed have recently noted, the way stories are delivered is leading to big changes in how they’re written. A dwindling number will continue working their way through a classic Russian novel while riding the subway. Many others now prefer the simplifications offered by a James Patterson, served up in three- to five-page chapters on their iPhones or tablets.
I wish it weren’t true, but I’m afraid it is. What’s happening–and not slowly–is that long, thoughtful narratives are going the way of your favorite acorn.
Dear Barry,
You bring up critical point that I agree with– eBooks are becoming the new “everyday,” but sadly, they are even more of the ephemera status than paperbacks. No trace of them for future generations should the Kindles/eReaders lack battery power, come into contact with liquid, crack, overheat or simply decide to catch a malware. Long narrative or quippy quickie, all forms are in danger of being lost to time.
As for the role of writers crafting their stories… you bring up an excellent topic of discussion. It could be it’s own column or Unboxed Conference panel! What exactly is the duty/role of the writer? To write the best story possible, giving all attention to the characters, plot, and the art of prose? Or to make a book (whatever form or content) that readers will buy and read readily?
I’d be curious to be in the audience of this debate. For me, personally, I guess I fall into the former category with a respectful eye to the latter. The story, for me, remains the same across platforms. But then again, I’m a woman who still collects acorns and pinecones. ;)
Thank you for contributing to the discussion, my friend!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
First, I love the acorn story.
Fascinating post. I read almost exclusively trade paper or ebooks these days. Hardcovers are heavy for travel and too hard to hold and read, and I don’t keep any books but my beloved research tomes (which take up quite enough space on their own. I do often buy an ebook as soon as the hardcover is published–and it is substantially less expensive.
Another tidbit about paperbacks, from The Atlantic.
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, America’s book publishers took an audacious gamble. They decided to sell the armed forces cheap paperbacks, shipped to units scattered around the globe. Instead of printing only the books soldiers and sailors actually wanted to read, though, publishers decided to send them the best they had to offer. Over the next four years, publishers gave away 122,951,031 copies of their most valuable titles.
Amazing, right?
That’s fascnating, Barbara — and may help explain the richness of the used bookstore in Izmir (see my reply to Don’s comment above), where so many US military families were once stationed. Seriously, this is one of the most amazing — and cavernous — bookstores I’ve ever encountered. Now I know why.
Those armed forces editions are amazing, Barbara. They were extra small, to fit in backpacks. Given that 123 million were distributed it’s surprising you don’t find more of them. I have on my shelves some Damon Runyon printed for soldiers. What must it have been like to read that on a troop ship or in a bivouac?
This post reminded me of a book I read recently: When Books Went to War by Molly Manning. It’s a fascinating history of Armed Services Edition paperbacks and the politics behind them: https://www.mollymanning.com/author/books/when-books-went-to-war/
I love these photos: https://www.mollymanning.com/author/museum/
Thanks for the links, Grace. The photos and captions are fascinating! And, what a surprise to learn that the Armed Services Edition paperback program “helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity” and “made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon.” I just ordered When Books Went to War.
GRACE, how fabulous are these links? Thank you so much! I’m going to go spend an hour giddily devoted to these images and information. My kind of happy weekend reading. Thank you again, and I hope you are having a beautiful one!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Barbara–
You may know this already, but when Peace Corps Volunteers are sent abroad, they’re provided with a two-hundred-book library of paperbacks, in a fold-open case. History, classic and popular fiction, bios and cultural studies, etc.
At least this was true in 1966. It was an incredible advantage for people like me, hunkered down in what was literally a little grass shack during a rainstorm, reading to my heart’s content, by kerosene lamp, on a dot of rock in the Pacific.
The Peace Corps get a 200-book library in a case? Well, shoot, I wish I would’ve known that when I was a young thing with good knees. I’d have signed up based on that alone!
By the way, Barry, I *love* the image of you “hunkered down in what was literally a little grass shack during a rainstorm, reading to my heart’s content, by kerosene lamp, on a dock of rock in the Pacific.” Hello, I want to read about that guy’s adventure!
Hashtag: Memoir? ;)
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
This is absolutely amazing information that I didn’t know, Barbara, THANK YOU!
I’m obsessed now with finding one of these military issued books. I don’t *think* I’ve ever seen one despite all my years trolling the Army libraries and USO used bookstore. Or maybe I did and was so accustomed to them that I didn’t know they were any different from what the “outside world” (i.e. civilians) were reading. Ha!
Another history nerd-ism: I love how the tangible context of a book influences the reader’s perspective of what is normal and what is not! As a child, I believed that all hardback books were nonfiction, all fiction books were paperbacks, and all religious books (the Bible) were leather with ethereal silk bindings! In turn, I gobbled the paperbacks; I was reverent of the hardbacks; and anything bound in leather was a holy tome.
Thanks for being part of the chat here, lovely friend!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Paperbacks. First known as ‘Pocket Books’.
I REMEMBER Pocket Books when we could first buy them in Ottawa. Can’t tell you if it was during or after WW II. They cost 25¢ and remained at that price for many years.
They had a logo of a kangaroo with a book sticking out of its pouch.
Those days are long gone, as is the 5¢ apple.
Today I paid $1.39 for one apple in the superstore.
Times change.
I love your post, Lyn. I can nearly smell the 5-cent apple in your hand. I remember when used books were a buck. I used to collect my babysitting quarters in a mason jar under my bed. I’d take them, four at a time, to the MWR shop and buy a book plus two fireballs at a nickel each. This was what I considered my perfect summer afternoon spent.
Thanks for being part of our paperback ponderings here!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Yeah, paperbacks, a sweet sandwich of words. Your post impelled me to one of my shelves, where I plucked out Hesse’s Steppenwolf (bracketed paperwise by Kerouac’s On the Road and Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America). I’ve had it since high school, and had duct-taped the binding and run masking tape around the rest of the front and back covers because I trotted through that book so many times.
There’s also a Silver Surfer (remember him?) comic panel with an inspiring quote that I taped on the title page, about which I’d forgotten. My iPad doesn’t quite give me the same feeling…
Thanks for an inviting post.
I bought “Silver Surfer” issue #1 sometime in the Sixties. Wish I still had it.
Oh yeah, Don. I suspect Silver Surfer #1 is worth a fair amount of silver now. (I’ll admit I was more of a Thor and Spider Man guy, but the Silver Surfer was cosmic in ways they weren’t.)
I agree, Tom. I don’t get anywhere near the same multi-sensory experience from reading on my laptop/digitally. Even though I write my novel drafts here and do all my writing/blogging/social media work on a screen, I read (for emotional resonance) by printed page. I have to print out all my novels and physically flip their pages to edit properly.
My comic hero indulgence as a child was the Archie Comic books that, I believe, are still on grocery store magazine stands… right next to the newest on the Kardashians. I smile when I see them and still wonder: Betty or Veronica. ;)
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
In the library world, we call very old and crumbly publications like paperbacks, pamphlets, penny papers and magazines quite literally ephemera. You won’t find them in many antique stores, but to archivists they’re precious treasures handled with cotton gloves, photographed, described in meticulous detail, and preserved in rooms where only people with special permission can enter.
I worked at one such archive in grad school, and the director at the time had a chip on his shoulder about scholars who analyzed old texts on their computer screens, without bothering to come in and look at the real things.
He’d rail, “How can that professor claim to know how people interpreted [some novel] if she doesn’t even know how they read it? Look at this!” He’d hold up an early edition of the book. “The glue is cheap! The print is huge! This wasn’t meant to be ‘great literature,’ it was entertainment! She’s reading it all wrong!”
Because the medium of delivery impacts the way readers understand and enjoy a story, I don’t think format is just a concern for publishers. It’s a concern for writers, too. Are you writing for people who can sit down with a huge hardcover and devote all of their attention to it for hours? Or for people who can only scan a few pages on their phones while waiting in the car for the kids to finish soccer practice? The answer should impact how you construct a story and express it.
Dear TK,
You win the award for being my “teach me a new word, please” hero of the Paperback Ponderings post! Ephemera. I’ve been using it left and right since you introduced me. Thank you!
I’m such a library and librarian devotee. My elementary librarian is still a very close family friend. She practically helped raise me for as much time as I spent in those hallowed aisles. I adore her and she comes to every event I do in the Metro DC/Virginia area. When I see her in the audience, my heart flutters: I’m young again and she has the keys to the kingdom.
As to your point regarding the medium of delivery. I’m going to copy and paste what I said to Barry above. It’s an excellent topic of discussion!
*****
What exactly is the duty/role of the writer? To write the best story possible, giving all attention to the characters, plot, and the art of prose? Or to make a book (whatever form or content) that readers will buy and read readily?
I’d be curious to be in the audience of this debate. For me, personally, I guess I fall into the former category with a respectful eye to the latter. The story, for me, remains the same across platforms. But then again, I’m a woman who still collects acorns and pinecones…
*****
Happy day to you and thank you again for giving me a word treasure: ephemera, ephemera, ephemera. It’s practically magical.
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Dearest Writer Unboxers,
I just had to say to all that these comments have positively MADE MY DAY. Such golden nuggets of new information, further historical contexts to consider, interesting questions being raised about what we value and why, about what our role as writers ought to be (the art of the narrative or the mode by which it is transmitted to readers), and my favorite, the personal stories of your treasured paperback ‘acorns’… Lord, I do love our unboxed writerly community something fierce!
More to each of you soon, but I had to say collectively THANK YOU for being such intuitive, loving reader-writer friends.
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
At the baby shower for my grandson (now age 10), I returned to my son his Matchbox cars collection and his childhood library. While he was thrilled to see both again, it was the books that meant the most.
After the baby shower, he and my daughter-in-law spent an hour or so going through the books, laughing at the drawings he had made in some of them, his changing penmanship where he identified himself as the owner of said book, and the memories those books stirred. Going through a Pippi Longstocking book, he came to a page with a large purplish streak on it–a blob of jelly had leaked from his sandwich and he had licked it off. And, there was the Charlie Brown book that his third grade teacher had taken from him and I had to retrieve.
Now, he reads those books to his boys and they not only love the stories, but their Dad’s stories about the books themselves (“Why did you lick the jelly off?” or “How come you drew kites all over this page?” or “How did Grandma sound when she read ‘bump,bump, bump?'”) Fortunately, their Dad has some pretty funny answers that they never tire of hearing. These books are more than the stories they contain–they link three generations of this family together, and maybe someday they’ll link us to a fourth.
Your post is beautiful, CK. Thank you for sharing your family’s book legacy and what a case in point! The stories in those old books are carried on even if the original is gone. So long as we can find copies (hardback, paperback, digital) to share with younger generations, they breathe and live again.
When my grandmother passed away in January 2015, I was deeply moved that one of her last requests was for the copy of “A Family Treasure of Little Golden Books: 46 Best-Loved Stories” be given to me. Tattered with the cover half pulled off, she’d kept it after all those years because it had been my dad’s favorite. He didn’t even know she had it at the assisted living facility where she spent her last months battling a brain tumor. She barely knew where or who she was, but she remembered that paperback book and wanted it given to her granddaughter… the writer. I’ll never be able to tell her how much that means to me, how much I treasure it, but I think she knows.
I’m convinced: the stories contained in paperbacks are just as powerful as in a hardbacks. One could argue, maybe more so, because they are ever more fleeting.
I’m crossing my fingers for those Matchbox Car books to make it to your fourth and fifth generations!
Yours truly,
Sarah
http://www.sarahmccoy.com
Oh, I totally agree! There is magic in them — and in hardbacks too, though different. I love the way paperbacks are so small that they can be easily tucked into a purse or backpack. I love how they look lined up on a shallow shelf. I love how they smell. Really, they’re just exactly what you said: something totally ordinary that’s special to those who see it. Lovely post!