I have a feeling that you know how much I am smitten with books and reading. It got me thinking about why some are always close to the written word and why others aren't so inclined. I can't leave home without a book or my Kindle in the handbag, I can't catch a flight or board a train unless I am fully stocked with books... I carry enough print for all emergencies... delays, breakdowns, insomnia... I cannot be without my 'literary friends', ever. Perhaps some might consider this an eccentricity, I regard my attachment as essential... and I don't feel 'dressed' unless I have reading matter by my side. I have learned that life involves much waiting... waiting for appointments... waiting for children... waiting for friends... waiting at airports and train stations... just waiting. Reading helps pass the time and in a productive way... Reading can settle the nerves, lift the mood and most importantly teach. Reading can be a best friend and reading means you are never lonely...
I think my love of reading came very early on. I am not an only child but I grew up as one... my brother was a lot older and had well and truly left home by the time I can remember... so reading was my hobby, my amusement and what I did when school was over and the play friends had gone home. There are many quiet moments in a house without siblings so it is easy for the characters of novels to become 'imaginary' friends. In my mind I shared in the escapades of Pollyanna, I hiked the mountains with Heidi and her grandfather in Switzerland and I was one of the Little Women... When you really immerse yourself in the words, especially as a child, the heroes and heroines are like friends, they become your family. The pages of my favourite novels were well thumbed, I was inclined to re-read the favourites over and over... I would feel sadness and loss when a great story ended... even now, I revert back to my first loves. Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago, Anna Karenina... sometimes I even re-write endings in my imagination... University didn't change me much... I still read for pleasure as much as was possible and then when I married I chose someone with as great an admiration for books as me.
When I had our children I didn't know much at all about parenting... being from a small family meant that I had little experience with babies... but I was sure of one thing. I wanted our children to share our love of reading. When they were tiny I would place rag books in their cots so they could learn the idea of a 'book', when they were old enough to listen we would read to them every night and as soon as they could grasp the alphabet we taught them to read. These days when I see the three of them together, when we are on holiday or they are at home in France, with their noses in a book I feel very content... I try and avoid the temptation to say, 'talk to me... stop reading... let's chat'... and as much as I crave their company, I am happy.
Our home in France is overflowing with books... coffee table tomes, fiction, non-fiction, dictionaries and encyclopaedias... We might be seduced by our iPads and Kindles for on-the-move-convenience ( and I would not want to live without either of these... they are an incredible luxury) but this has not and will not stop us collecting the hard copies... Books are about far more than content alone...
I hope you enjoy all my book recommendations... there are many more to come... Happy friday... xv
If books are your thing then don't miss...
image - carla coulson
styling - vicki archer
image from - FRENCH ESSENCE
Like you I cannot ever leave the house without a book!!!!!
ReplyDelete.. 100% agree ... I read House of Mirth years ago and still mourn for Lily Bart. Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series, read young, developed my love for all things English. I count as good friends all of E.F. Benson's characters in his Lucia series. Great post, as usual. Love 'french essence' ... good weekend Vicki
ReplyDeleteSomehow I think there is a "reading gene" - some of us have it, some of us don't. My father read alot when I was a child, my mother did not. Half of us children had his love of books and continue to read till this day. The others did not. I can't finish my day without picking up my book - whichever one is on the nightstand that week. And now with blogging, I'm reading more and more as I follow other's journeys. What would life be without the written word?
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful post!! I love to read as well! Yes, the iPad and other tablet readers are such a luxury, but I do love to read from a good hardcopy . Gone with the Wind is such an incredible book!!
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday!
www.donnaviningblog.com
I thought I was the only one who had to always have a book in her purse! How lovely to know I'm not. I got a Kindle last Christmas, and one of my greatest joys now is to have so many books at my finger tips all at once! My children also love reading and it is such a pleasure to discuss books with them.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your blog!
Laura
You are not strange carrying books around wherever you go. Same here. When our first daughter was a baby we would have her sit between us while we were reading and we'd give her an old magazine. Which she would tear to shreds, but hey, she didn't read yet. A children's book would not keep her interested long enough and she couldn't tear it, so hence the magazine.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, she's a big reader now!
Hi, I can totally relate to that. I brought Polyanna and Anne of Green Gables, Little Women and Good Wives, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Gone with the wind and Anna Karenine to the other side of the world with me, not to mention all the French literature I studied at university! I swap books with my friends and translation students and I've found a wonderful source of cheap second-hand English books in Paris with lots of recent authors. I just picked up an Anita Shreve, for instance - Book Off in rue Quatre Septembre. My son is getting me a Kindle for my birthday so I will never be short of reading material again no matter where I am.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet little music box!
ReplyDeleteVicki, I felt compelled to write to you on this. I am an academic librarian in the state of Florida, USA. Even though we are very "techie" I have an ipad, iphone and Kindle and most of our library collection are ebooks - I just love the look and feel of a "real" book sometimes. My eyes get so tired (and I am only 40) of staring at a computer screen all day and night. That's why I have so enjoyed your beautiful coffee table books. I am a Francophile too and look forward to your blog postings everyday. Keep on reading and posting! Thanks, Tracey
ReplyDeleteYour post this morning was such a joy to read. I felt that it is something I had written. Like yourself, I always have a book "by my side where ever I go.... I, too am not an only child but my siblings were much older. The three books you mention we're the first of many who become my passion... Also I would add "To Kill A Mockingbird."
ReplyDeleteChange my life at the age of 11 forever.
Once again, thank you for such a lovely post. BTW: I am now almost finish with a book I am writing. During the last 18 months what I so missed were my books by others!!
Thanks for the recommendations, Vicki. I share your love of books and also consider them dear friends and companions. My Kindle and the Kindle app on my iPhone have made travel and unexpected waits so much better - I don't have to pack 10 books in my luggage and I'm never without my current read. My parents fostered my love of books in a very similar way to your approach with your children... and it's something I am grateful for every day!
ReplyDeleteThanks for recommending these books Vicki. I've heard of all of them and now, on your suggestion, I think I'll order them!
ReplyDeleteCuriously, last time I was at Rizzoli bookstore in New York the staff said their bestselling titles were books about books. And a lot of my architect friends said they're now being asked to convert yoga rooms and home cinemas into libraries. So nice to hear we're falling back in love with these rooms again!
Janelle McCulloch x
PS Thank you for graciously adding me to your blogroll - and for your lovely email. I was very touched.
Well said! I used to sneak out of bed and crack my door open to let the light in just so I could read a few more pages.
ReplyDeleteWhen my kids were little I read to them every night including the entire Little House on the Prairie series!
Oh, Vicky I always knew we were related, sisters in arms (armed with books that is)Like you, I am not complete without a book, magazine or my Nook these days.
ReplyDeleteYou might believe me, that important events in my life are still remembered by me by the books I read! When my second son was born and he spend hours away from me, while having to fight a kidney condition, I lay sleepless for nights and I read 'Not without my Daughter', by Betty Mahmoody.(1990) When I got married the second time(!), I was working through Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility' with my then still rudimentary English!
There are dates and books!
Now I often write in my blog #2 about the books I have read or I plan to. It has become a reading diary of sorts.
Every book you've mentioned I have devoured too, so if you like to see what's on my bookshelves, look below and browse a little.
www.victorialifestyle.blogspot.com
Thank you for a most delightful post!
PS: Your wonderful books are on my shelves as well!!! ; )
I'm the same way, Vicki. I feel lost when I don't have a book (or two or three) going.
ReplyDeleteI've managed to catch a series of three really bad viruses since the middle of January, and have been really sick. When I don't have a scheduled harp performance and when I'm not at work, I'm at home on the couch or in bed, escaping with a book. On my nightstand now:
- The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose (a beautiful read!)
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck (a "should" I never got around to until now)
- The Tao of Leadership by John Heider (from the used bookstore - it's lovely)
- Holy Anorexia by Rudolph Bell (a fascinating study of medieval saints and their relationship with food as a means of gaining control of their lives)
Eclectic, I know!
I love, love, love to read. Probably too much. Lately though, when I see everyone reading their cellphones, Ipads, Kindles, and reading books, papers and so on in busy areas and I wonder about the missed opportunities to socialize. It may be a way to armor ourselves from the outside world and cut off the interaction. I wonder if it doesn't fragment us as a society.
ReplyDeleteThen I go back to reading whatever it is I have in hand.
Vicki - I wouldn't miss a day reading your blog and I share your love of France. I, too, am a obsessed reader. I, too, never go anywhere w/o a book in hand and my car serves as a library so I always have a "friend" along. My parents started my love of books by taking us to the local library once a week. However, I want to read the hard book - the smell and feel of the pages, the turning of the page, the chance to use a bookmark from my collection. I've emailed your piece to another reader addict. Thank you for brightening my day.
ReplyDeleteLaura
I agree, Vicki. Can't live without my book either. Love my iPad for reading and thumbing through images, but I want t wall full of books. I fear that they will be a thing of the past soon. Hopefully not.
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday.
Teresa
xoxo
Vicki,
ReplyDeleteWell spoken/written. I do have favorites and enjoy re-reading them. I was in a book group and found that reading something I didn't choose to read was not as fun as reading a book you had determined would hold your interest. I stuck it out many years but several times felt like the book we had selected was homework. Our group disbanded and I'm enjoying my reading once again. P.S. I am an only child and I do remember the books being my travel and role model and company provider.
Karen
Busted! I also carry books in the car! who knew someone else did also. Love this post. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Reading is such a rich pastime. Our young children enjoy reading, and every night before bedtime we all gather to read. I've recently reread some Edgar Allan Poe favorites. I find his work to be so intriguing. Have a wonderful weekend. -Al
ReplyDeleteThe picture is so beautiful - I could just keep on watching it!
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend!
Tibs
shoptravelfood.blogspot.com
You are definitely a kindred spirit!
ReplyDeleteMy husband is always amazed that I need to bring so many books on a trip. A gal has to read. I have not moved to the Kindle or any reading equipment as I am, at heart, a Library devotee and love the smell and feel of a book.
ReplyDeleteHe also can't comprehend why I take out so many books each time from the Library. I tell him, you can never be sure which one will catch your interest. LOVE BOOKS!!!
I always have a novel on the go. Like you I adore reading.
ReplyDeleteMy bedside cabinet is full of the next books that I plan to read and although I think a kindle would be nice for travel I will resist and take along the real thing.
I love going into book sellers and rarely leave without buying one or two books.
They are also great gifts for friends...
Oh, My Goodness...You hit the spot, again! I, too, am an only child with a brother. I loved Pollyanna and Little Women, I couldn't see the movies, to relive the stories, often enough. As a child, when I asked my mom a question, she would say the same thing, "Go, look it up in the encyclopedia!" I still have that set of encyclopedias and I refer my granddaughters to them often. I am so delighted that my granddaughters are exceeding all expectations in the book department, also. They love reading beyond anything else. Aren't we lucky to have grown up in the age of REAL books?
ReplyDeleteLove this post!
xoxo, Chris
astonishing photos and very touching honesty, I had to stop and say...congrats on your blog :).
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written - I love books too!
ReplyDeleteGerrie
Like many others here, this post hit so close to home. I needed to think a bit before replying. Finally, I'll just serve up to you the one memory that came to me right away: when I was 7, we moved to a very large Victorian home in Mason, Michigan. My Dad said that there were 23 rooms! But rather than find me in the red cut velvet lined library where was I? Inside of the oak-lined closet of my room, previously the maid's quarters, scrunched down on a pile of stuffed animals and dirty clothes. With (important point) a book clutched between my hot little hands.
ReplyDeleteWe moved around quite a bit and books were the friends that I could count on. I was never the "outsider" to Dickens. And they made me want to see the world. So I did!
Bon Weekend,
Heather
I love that photo!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up, most books were illustrated, and I loved that. N.C. Wyeth illustrations, for instance. I guess that the cost of that became too much and the publishers stopped adding the art. What a loss!
Last summer I read My Reading Life by Pat Conroy. I am so jealous that he can devote that much time to reading. I highly reccomends it.
ReplyDeleteKaren
What a magnificent post! Books are beautiful, and some of life's greatest pleasures. And yes, i adore my Nook, but will NEVER stop purchasing new real books, or going to the library and borrowing real books. I can't imagine a world without them. And a delicious piece of dark chocolate and an excellent book is a better combo than hot & sour soup & pot stickers! (Though those are yummy too.) :) I wonder, sometimes, in fact, if it would be easier to give up chocolate than books? Oh well. Probably a good thing i never have to decide!
ReplyDeleteHi there
ReplyDeleteLiving in the North of England many a wet afternoon is spent curled up with a book, a trait inherited from my late mother and passed on to my daughter. I even read the 'coffee table tomes'!! Loving 'French Impressions' by Betty Lou Phillips, 'The French Touch' by Daphne de Saint Sauveur and all the Francesco Da Mosta books. I've just ordered 'French Essence' as a treat. Looking forward to reading it as we have spent many a happy holiday in Provence. Those were the days, lovely memories.
You've done a great thing....encouraging your children to love reading......and no doubt your love of reading has enhanced your own writing style. You're always a joy to read Vicki!
ReplyDeleteOldest brother and I hit hard with the reading bug, middle brother hit with the "Books - what are they?" gene.
ReplyDeleteMy Italian husband doesn't read, none of his family read and there are next to no books in any of their homes.
Now our two kids are taking after Dad rather than me no matter the encouragement....I perservere but remember my own Mum wasn't a reader either...genetic????
It's such a love of mine I long to see them nose in a great book, bringing it to the dinner table rather than put it down, keeping it with them till they finish it in a few days and then start it all over again. Perhaps one day my genes and love for reading will wear off on them.
ciao lisa
Here's to bibliophilia! I can't imagine a life without books...
ReplyDeleteI always had my nose stuck in a book as a child. {Literally. I can probably thank it for my short-sightedness at a young age. I should have listened to my mother, of course. Mothers are so wise.} I love the feel of holding a book in my hands when reading. And they are such beautiful gifts. Surely there will still be enough demand for 'tangible' books to continue to exist... I hope so. Bon weekend, dear Vicki.
ReplyDeleteSnap! To me a house without books is a house without a soul. Yet it never ceases to amaze me the number of houses I go into and there's not a book ( or magazine) to be seen. We live in a little shoe box with books in every room - including the loo! It pains us greatly to have to cull and always, more come in the front door than go out! When we cull we give them to local op shops and invariable come out of the shop with .....a couple of books! Great post as always.
ReplyDeleteFrancesca x
Books are a gateway to the world. You can reach so many places and time just by reading a book. Enjoy the lovely weekend, Kellie xx
ReplyDeleteMy favourite book ever is Little Women even though I will soon be 49. I have lost count of how many times I read it as a young girl and even into my 20's. The March girls showed me empathy, kindness, generosity, spirit, courage and strength and these were all qualities I tried to emulate. Having a difficult childhood they were my friends, moral compass and escape. I re-read it a few years ago and I enjoyed it just as much as I did then.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my childhood and teen years books were a safe refuge to escape and forget for however long I read for. My favourite reading spots were in bed every night and most weekend mornings before everyone was awake, perched up in our apricot tree and in winter in the car parked in our backyard in the sunshine and after an hour or two dozing off......bliss!
I have read to my own children since they came home from hospital (ages 17 and 15) and they enjoy reading as well. My philosophy was you can never be lonely or bored with a book.
Love your blog
With best wishes
Gail
Hi Vicki, Your childhood sounds like mine. I used to have at least 3 (sometimes 4) books "going" at the same time. Now, I'm usually working on a couple and feel pain when they end. Have a wonderful week-end. Mary
ReplyDeleteThis just might be my favorite post yet ... :)
ReplyDeleteLock me into a MASSIVE library with a crate of red, cheese and bread and don't open for a week...oh how happy I would be! Sylvia
ReplyDeleteHello Vicki,
ReplyDeleteI am so fortunate to be able to make a living from the e industry that provided me with so much magic and enchantment all my life. Books are also an essential part of the decor of my home. To me, books are like friends who you share a part of your journey with. I can still recall my excitement at seeing my first black marks on a page and knowing if I taught myself to read I could discover a magical kingdom. Those marks would have been an Enid Blyton book. And this week in Australia my latest book, Poet’s Cottage came onto the shelves which was party inspired by the Enid Blyton story of her two daughter’s variant points of view of their mother. (And a Tasmanian holiday my father went in 2007). My entire life has been wrapped up around books. To me there is no greater joy than the smell and turning the page of a book. We saw Jane Birkin play in Sydney last week. It was a magical night. Thank you for your lovely post on books and reading. xx
For many years, even if I was too tired to read, I would go to sleep with my hand on a book. It was comforting to me to
ReplyDeleteknow it was there. Reading has also gotten me through times of grief and worry. Even if I have had to reread a page several times,
eventually I have been able to lose myself in the words, and for a time at least, forget the pain.
My father's side of the family were all great readers - my mother not so much. My Dad taught me to read well before I started primary school and always kept me well supplied with books. Don't remember the earliest ones but I progressed through the Enid Blyton tales, the Pollyanna stories, all the Anne books and most of the rest by LM Montgomery, all four of Louise May Alcott's books about Little Women etc, the Katy books, the Abbey books, the Wells' books about ballet, the Chalet school series, the Dimsie books (English from early-mid 20th century) etc. When I was about 7 my mother was very ill for around a year (she had developed TB as a volunteer army nurse during the Second World War and later had a relapse) and I was sent to her mother 600 miles away. My grandmother was a widow and found looking after a small child a difficult task (it later turned out she herself was in the earlyish stages of the cancer that was to cause her death). She had no books of her own but there was a full bookcase of my late grandfather's from his childhood and teen years. He had brought them out from England. It was lonely living with a grandmother I hardly knew who was not very affectionate. So much to her disgust (she was worried I would ruin my eyesight) I plunged into reading every single one of his books. They were Victorian and Edwardian schoolboy books, adventure stories and Sunday school and school prizes. Even though they wouldn't normally have been my choice, having books to read when you're lonely as a child is a great comfort and helps grow the imagination. I later moved onto Jane Austen and Dickens and the Bronte sisters and from there in my early teens to Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Ibsen etc. of course I was too young at the time to fully appreciate these books but I found them absorbing and have read and re-read my favourite classics all my life, continuing to find new things in them that I missed when really young and at subsequent life stages. After all that what could I study at university but English and French literature! I continue to read a mix of light non-fiction such as Frances Mayes' books about her life in Tuscany and similar as well as many remarkable books, including by Nobel prize winners, from which I have learned so much, a few examples are: Halldor Laxness' "Independent People", Mahfouz "The Cairo Trilogy" and "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry. Have also loved the novels and autobiographies/biographies of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford and the rest of the Mitford family and the volumes of letters. My husband is also a book loving fanatic - he has at least one work by every Nobel Prize winner for literature since the prize was first awarded and has read all of these plus more. We both love our books which have almost taken over our home. Of course I also have all Vicki and Carla's books and enjoy them too. When we find we have too many to accommodate we give them to Op Shops with much angst at parting with them and like another contributor, inevitably return with more books. Best wishes Pamela
ReplyDeleteI have a great love of books too. I remember my parents constantly checking in on me at night when I was quite little and telling me "just 5 more minutes till lights out" because I'd beg them to let me read just another couple of paragraphs!!
ReplyDelete~ Clare x