In the course of doing something incredibly nerdy*, I discovered that two of my books had gone missing. I know that I didn’t weed them. I think I loaned them to people, but it’s been so long that I have no idea who I lent them to. As far as I know, I’ve only ever lost three books. (This does not include books that I’ve destroyed by reading them too hard or left out in the rain**.) The two books I lost are ones I mourn. Nancy Turner’s These is My Words is one of my absolute favorite books. The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink, was full of my margin notes from two semesters of co-teaching an upper division class.
I had my copy of These is My Words for years. I read it over and over, falling in love with the characters as they fell in love with each other. These is My Words is one of my favorite comfort reads, even though the ending still makes me tear up. Now it’s a book that I recommend to a lot of readers because it ticks so many boxes: historical fiction, love story without being romance, strong female protagonist, humor, pathos. I read it with my book group last summer (I think) and I was thrilled when most of the group loved it. (The only holdout listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator bugged her.) Every time someone talks to me about this book after I’ve talked them into reading it, I get a glow from the feeling of sharing a beloved book.
All that said, I can easily replace These is My Words. What I can’t replace is my copy of The Reader. The last two times I read it, cover to cover, I filled the margins with notes about things I wanted to point out to students or prod myself to look deeper with a critical eye. I underlined passages I thought the class should talk about. During class, I would add more notes based on discussion and things that my brilliant colleague would say. When I buy a new copy, I’ll never remember what I scribbled in the margins. The idea of lost knowledge bothers me deeply, especially with my copy of The Reader. I’ve changed my mind twice about what I think the book is about and what I think of the narrator. My copy is probably with a student. I have a vague memory of loaning it to a student; they clearly never brought it back.
I wonder where these books are, but not in the sense of their physical locations. They might be stuffed at the back of someones shelves or shoved under a bed. It might be too much to hope that These is My Words is loved by its new owner or that the student who absconded with my copy of The Reader is adding new notes in the margins, calling me an idiot because they found a new way to interpret some scene or other.
Sometimes there is an upside to losing a book. When I replaced my copy of The Tsar of Love and Techno, I was actually sent a signed hard cover. Anthony Marra is one of my favorite contemporary writers, so I’m thrilled to own a book he signed.
* Retagging my book collection on LibraryThing.
** I’ve only lost one book this way.
What a shame! I must admit to being a terrible book returner who has accidentally “stolen” a couple of books over the years, so that now I no longer borrow books. But it’s a particular pity to have lost the one with your notes (even though I think people who write in books should be deprived of chocolate for a year… 😉 ).
Bah! 🙂 I’m an inveterate book-scribbler, but only with my own books.
I think I’ve only “stolen” one book in my life. I use the danger quotes because I don’t think I actually took the book. I was accused of not returning a copy of Across Five Aprils but I never found the copy I borrowed from the school for class. It’s a mystery.