A Chip off the Old Book

Anybody who knows anything knows that my mom, Mary Lou, loved books. She loved ’em even more than I do. She read books the way some folks plow through potato chips. And, thank Heaven, she passed on that bibliophilia to me.

More than that, beginning in junior high I kept a log of every book I read. If it’s a book I owned, my practice has been to write the date(s) of reading on some bookmark, which stayed with the book.

For example (above), I’ve read The Hobbit twelve times, finishing on the dates seen above. The first four times was a copy which was part of the Ballantine paperbacks set.

This set I lent to a friend who never returned it. No, I’m not mad at him!

In contrast, I’ve read Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes a whopping 28 times.

The above image typifies my habit of using a book’s receipt as its bookmark.

If you squint and cross your eyes, you can almost read the book title on the receipt. Some blog posts about this monumental parable:

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/something-wicked-is-great-achievement_26.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/something-wicked-this-way-comes-but-fun.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/its-most-wonderful-time-of-year.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/its-astounding-piece-of-americana.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/celebrating-big-show-part-4.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/something-wicked-this-way-comes.html

https://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/secret-origin-of-something-wicked-this.html

(Can you tell I love that book?)

Back to the sainted Mary Lou the bookworm ...

One of the mostest bittersweet things you can imagine was going through her books when she left them behind. Some I donated, some I sold and then donated the money, and some I kept.

One of those was Nick Meyer’s third Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Canary Trainer. Now, Mom died in 2010—but I only got around to reading The Canary Trainer in January, 2020. 

Mom bought the book in 1994, according to her bookplate. But see? see? SEE?

Mom logged the dates she read the book! Something I have always done! And I never knew she did this. She never knew that I did it.

Goes to show you, great bookworms think alike!

See you on Monday, friends!