Skip to main content

5 Records to Keep

If you intend to be fastidious about the records you keep for your literary children, there are a few things worth writing down as you read:

1. The Title: This is a bit obvious, but if you're keeping records in a journal or on a blog, it's considerably more necessary than if you're leaving your notes on the inside cover of the book itself. Recording the title can be useful in other ways, particularly if the book comes in multiple editions, or if you're reading a translation of some kind. Something is communicated to me, for example, when a reader claims to have read Demons rather than The Possessed.

2. The Date: To know that my mother read a particular book while she was pregnant with me, or when we were on a summer vacation, or while she was between jobs, is interesting to me personally. Books then provide a kind of literary timeline to a life. For the rest of the world, this may have no significance at all, but your children will consider nothing more fascinating in the years to come than the realization that you were thinking, feeling, and experiencing all manner of things they were unaware of while they were right under your nose. There are other perfectly decent reasons for recording dates, but I find this one is my favorite.

3. Where It Came From: Many of the books lining my shelves were gifts. Some were unintentional gifts (i.e. they were loaned to me and never returned). There are a few which I remember purchasing with perfect vividness. You Shall Know Our Velocity!, by Dave Eggers, with Lisa and Tara during a spontaneous trip to Fullerton back in the day when that city felt exotic to my desert experience; or The Princess and the Goblin, which I hunted for in an attempt to begin a collection of first editions.

4. Favorite Passages: Whether by page number (accounting for the edition) or transcription, pointing our your favorite passages is a way of developing a roadmap for future readers. If these are passages you have considered long after you first picked up the book, it may even be something recognizable to your children - if not word for word, then in the manner by which their content has influenced you in some way.

5. What You Thought: Why is this book important to you in particular? Why should your children read it - or avoid it? Recording your own thoughts is not just a way for your children to converse with your own reading experiences across time, but it's also a way for you to synthesize in your own mind what might otherwise be a passing impression. "What you thought" is a broad prescription for any number of written observations. Take time with this, and enjoy it. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
6 comments
Read more

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

Book of the Week: The Hunger Games

If Cynthia Voigt had written science fiction, it probably would have looked something like The Hunger Games . In Suzanne Collins's newest novel, we meet a protagonist who seems remarkably familiar. Like Voigt's heroines, we understand her story because she seems so much like ourselves - no matter how strenuous or bizarre the circumstances, we feel certain our story would be the same. We, too, would have those resources, that practicality, that certain sensitivity that separates us from the masses. I don't say this critically - it is the book's strongest feature that it identifies with every one of its readers and says 'this could be your story.' It is not just its portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, the novel's heroine, that is familiar. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic North American nation, Panem. It is a country held together by fear - a fear instilled by the capitol into each of its twelve districts and maintained by a yearly event called the Hunge...
5 comments
Read more