Category Archives: memory

March 14, 2014   Rachel   backstory, memory, Rachel S., recommendations, used books  
3

Making it last.

I was sitting in my favorite local coffee shop this past weekend when one of my favorite local coffee shop neighborhood friends stopped by as well. She sat down next to me as I was doing the crossword and pulled out the latest book she’d started reading. I don’t remember what it was, she wasn’t too sure about it either—she’d bought it on recommendation from one of the bookstore staff members and was none too keen on placing full faith in the reliability of said recommendation.

In any case, it was as she opened it up to the title page that I stopped her. There was an adorable stamp of one of those Victorian silhouette portraits and underneath, in simple block letters, it said “FROM THE LIBRARY OF [name redacted to protect the privacy of local coffee shop neighborhood friends].” I thought it was a great idea—not only to make sure that any person who may borrow or pick up the novel in the future would know to just whom to return it, but also as a mark of character.

One of my favorite things about used books—aside from the stories themselves—are the ownership markings, inscriptions, postcards that fall out, shopping lists and notes tucked away for safe keeping or bookmarking and promptly forgotten about. I have used books that I’ve bought solely for the inscription on the title page or for the personal notes scribbled therein. I don’t mean notes on the text—though if not too intrusive to my reading, those can be very fun, too—I mean the way you can just tell this book was owned, read, used and loved by someone before you. That the sentimentality and personality of a previous owner as well as the merit of the book itself can last for generations, too.

After exclaiming at my friend’s stamp, I vowed to get one of my own. I haven’t, yet, but it’s definitely on the list. My friend noted that one of her favorite things is adding her stamp to a book’s title page that already has a previous owner’s name, a library stamp, anything like that what have you. She called it a little catalogue of all the places the book has been and the people whose lives it has touched in any way—insignificant or otherwise. I thought it was a wonderful sentiment and agree wholeheartedly.

Old, used books are great for so many things, their “book smell,” the way they’re worn in, for possibly an outdated cover, but above all, it’s the reminder that many lives, not just yours as the current book’s keeper, can be touched by such a simple thing. What say you? Are you in the same camp or do you just hate any kind of mussing or marring on your literature? Go ahead, rant or wax poetic, Romantic, I’m all ears.

March 07, 2014   Lauren   fun, Lauren, memory  
3

Mementos

Earlier this week, my client Wayne Gladstone asked me if I still had the copy of his manuscript I’d first read.  We were talking about the release of his debut novel, Notes from the Internet Apocalypse (which you should definitely feel free to go buy right now.  I’ll wait.), and he recalled that when I’d offered representation I’d told him that I’d been sure that I wanted to sign it, so I’d started making edits as I read.  I’d been marking mistakes when I suddenly reached a pivotal moment and wrote “holy shit!” in the margin, as I’d realized all the “mistakes” were clues building up to a major revelation.  He wanted to get that piece of paper with my “holy shit” in the margin so he could frame it.

Unfortunately, he’d misremembered.  The real story was that I’d made edit notes on my e-reader and then exclaimed “holy shit!” out loud on the subway on my way home.  Somewhat less frameable, alas.  Also not recorded for posterity.

Still, it got me thinking about publishing and the trinkets we keep.  I don’t know about the author’s side of things, but I have a bulletin board covered in thank you notes, bookmarks, and various promotional items that authors have sent my way.  I also have a postcard my client Erica Ridley sent me when she visited Galway, where I went to grad school; the New York Times crossword puzzle featuring a clue about Heather Brewer’s The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod; and a copy of one of the poems that I wrote my grad school dissertation on, to remind myself of why I went into publishing. Not to mention the star of our DGLM holiday parties, an inflatable fruitcake that Richelle Mead sent me one year, now displayed prominently on my bookshelves.

I’m all about the little reminders of how far we’ve come.  Any time I’m near a bookstore or book section with my family, I show them my name in the acknowledgments of at least a few books.  I try to restrain myself when with friends, who are less obligated to indulge me, but I rarely succeed completely. I’ve also done it at both the bookstore I worked at in college (B&N 6th Ave and 8th Street, may she rest in peace) and grad school (Dubray Books in Galway), showing off to my ex-coworkers that I wasn’t just lying about where I spend my days.  So I was both completely flattered by Wayne’s request and totally understood.  I also wish I had that to frame.  If only I had been working in hard copy!

Do you have any mementos of your publishing journey?  What do you not have yet that you’re saving a special place for on your mantel?

December 17, 2013   sharon   creativity, future of publishing, inspiration, memory  
1

Kickin’ It Old School

Over the past month we’ve had some scheduled upgrades and maintenance take place on our server. Sometimes this means that we haven’t had access to our email or –horrors!- the Internet for as much as three hours at a time! Work screeches to a halt, thumbs are twiddled, hair is pulled. How can we get any work done without WiFi?

Oh yeah. People used to work like this every single day. And I’m not even talking about prehistoric hunters and gatherers, or even hardy homesteaders proving out their land in the Ozarks. I’m thinking of the not-so-distant days before e-books and Kindles, before Outlook and Firefox, before Post-Its and Keurigs. The good old days of penciled manuscripts and ink-penned contracts! Ernest Hemingway scrawling in a Paris café, Margaret Mitchell pounding away on this typewriter and using her finished pages to prop up her wobbly couch (or so Wikipedia assures me).

I don’t know that the DGLM office will be investing in typewriters or quills any time soon, but we did find worthwhile ways to spend our analog time. Some of us caught up on reading submissions (on pre-loaded Kindles, natch). Some of us went through the ominous to-file stack that we’ve been ignoring since Thanksgiving. Some of us thought about blog posts we could write when the Internet returns…

What are your tips for non-digital productivity?

March 02, 2012   Rachel   children's books, classics, memory, Rachel S.  
6

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.

One of the most widely read children’s authors in the world, Dr. Seuss, would have celebrated his 108th birthday today. A cultural icon, one would be hard-pressed to find a child or adult who had never flipped through, read or recited, say, Green Eggs and Ham or the Cat in the Hat. I have no idea what my younger brother’s first word was, as it has always been attributed as “Ish,” one of the appropriately named characters of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.*

Theodore Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, revolutionized children’s literature. No longer were the stories, if you could even call them stories, of the plain and simple “Dick and Jane” variety. Children could now, and were encouraged to, use their imagination, make up silly words and rhyme to their heart’s content. Values and life lessons were still imparted, but now in a way that made children want to learn about them—reading could be fun and playful.

Browsing the various tributes to the good doctor today, I came across this fun assortment of Dr. Seuss trivia put together by Time magazine. Who knew that “Seuss” is meant to rhyme with “voice”! Trying it out, it sounds more like I’m impersonating Sylvester the Cat.

What are some of your favorite Dr. Seuss-related memories? I’m sure you have them

*My first word was “pretty,” thank you for asking.

June 17, 2011   Lauren   great books, Lauren, memory  
8

Sharing is caring

One of NY’s greatest pleasures is that it’s a pretty literary city. With American publishing centered here, on just about any night you can probably find a great literary event going on. Last night I went to a reading and panel featuring new children’s books, and it was a fun event. But I had an ulterior motive:  one of the authors was signing a book I’ve read, loved, and must share with my sister. Not only is it a book about sisterly love, it’s precisely the sort of book she and I used to share back when we still shared a bedroom. In fact, when I first read it, I was reminded of a short story in a horror anthology we were obsessed with when we were younger. My first thought when I read the last sentence of the novel was that I loved it. My second was that Katey would, too.

Even though we no longer share a bedroom or even a state, Katey and I still share books.  I think I’ve mentioned before that I try to give her my favorite books I’ve read in the past year for her birthday and Christmas. I also never visit her without at least a book or two in tow, no matter how little else I’ve packed.  And when she and her family come visit me in July, there will be a stack of great reads waiting. When she bought a new bookcase recently and posted a blurry photo on Facebook, I tried to spot things I’d given her and tag them. It was like a Word Search for book nerds. And she’ll reciprocate: I think there are already five books lined up for her to bring up for me next month.

I’ve always been a book sharer and love trading off with friends or giving them recommendations, but it’s Katey who I think of with every book I read. All books end up sorted in one of two mental lists:  give to Katey or Katey wouldn’t like. We don’t always love the same things, but where books are concerned, we completely understand each other.

Am I alone in this? Anyone else have a kindred soul whom they just need to share books with? Or do you spread the word to everyone equally?

June 14, 2011   John   fun, John, memory, reading, suggestions, Uncategorized  
3

Parks and reading

This past Sunday, in a futile effort to wear out our toddler so that he just might take an afternoon nap, we got moving early and checked out the new extension of the High Line. For those who haven’t been, the High Line is the park that’s been developed on the abandoned elevated train tracks that run from Greenwich Village up to 30th Street along the West Side. Conceptually, it’s an amazing space—narrow and industrial, yet full of greenery and neat architectural features, plus the views are spectacular. For anyone visiting New York these days, I’d put it on the must-see list.

Anyway, as we paraded uptown from 18th Street, I noticed more than a few people sitting on the benches reading newspapers and books. In the moment, it seemed a little odd to me—while there’s ample seating on the High Line, the walkway is so tight in places that it’s hard to believe one could concentrate with passers-by literally walking on top of you. But then I started thinking about the open spaces or parks around town where I go to read, and it’s actually a total mix of quiet and bucolic, noisy and public.

For instance, when I was at Penguin and worked from home on Fridays, I’d often hit one of the relatively uninhabited stretches of Riverside Park, especially a certain walkway that becomes a truly mind-blowing explosion of color when the trees start to bloom in late April. (sorry, I’m not telling where!) Or, later in the season, I’d go down to the Hudson River to catch the breeze off the water—likewise, a very quiet spot to read during the day.

Yet at the same time, I’d sometimes plant myself on a bench in Washington Square park, which is one of the busiest in the city, no matter what time of day. Another favorite bench spot is at the boat pond in Central Park, which is lovely but always full of tourists and kids running around. And then there’s the Sheep’s Meadow, where I’ve actually done a lot of quality reading despite the ever-present threat of getting beaned by a Frisbee.

I’d like to think there’s some correlation between what I’m reading and where I want to read it, or what kind of atmosphere, but I can’t really come up with any pattern or system at the moment. So I guess I’ll just chalk it up (as Lauren and others have written before) to the myriad pleasures of reading in nature. But what about you? Any special green spots here in the City or elsewhere that readers should know? Do you find you gravitate toward different parks or types of parks depending on your reading material?

Now that I’ve got this all down on the blog, I’ll certainly have these questions in mind—and maybe, if you get up on the High Line in the near future, you just might see me head down in a book!

June 10, 2011   Lauren   children's books, fun, Lauren, memory  
7

Rumpusing in the Night Kitchen with some Chicken Soup with Rice

Today, my friends, is the 83rd birthday of one Maurice Sendak—among the greatest children’s book authors and illustrators the world has ever had the good fortune to know.  If you don’t know who Maurice Sendak is, get thee to the nearest child’s bookshelf with haste.  (If this involves breaking into the neighbor’s house, I’m sure they’ll forgive you when you explain that you needed badly to read it.)  Unquestionably, that shelf has Where the Wild Things Are on it, which, if not my favorite book from childhood, is certainly in the top 10.  (My other favorites include The Monster at the End of This Book, The Giving Tree, Green Eggs & Ham, Caps for Sale, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, in case you were curious.)  What kid (American kid?) doesn’t know about Max and the Wild Things?  I’ll admit I didn’t see the recent film adaptation—it looked lovely, but I thought Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers combining forces might just be too much for me, and I was afraid to let them ruin such a classic.

Unlike most children’s books, which I associate mostly with my own love for them, Sendak’s books are, to me, clear reminders of particular people.  If I’m not mistaken, Where the Wild Things Are is my mother’s favorite picture book.  When I think of it, I invariably think of her—of how good she is at reading aloud and how much love for books she instilled in me as a child.  If not for her and her passion for books like this one, I might not be in publishing right now.  I might not think that books are important and magical and transformative.

My sister is the one I associate In the Night Kitchen with.  It’s not actually one of my favorite childhood books, and I’m not sure if it’s one of hers either.  I don’t remember it very well, in fact.  I can’t recall anything that happens, though I imagine it involves a kitchen at night.  But I do very strongly associate it with her, because I’m pretty sure she owned it and lorded it over me that it was hers, not mine.  As the youngest of three, she may not have had as many major classic picture books as my older brother and I did.  Green Eggs & Ham is one of the best things that ever happened to words, but I’m pretty sure no house needs three copies, so it’s fairly likely that the one we had was technically given to our brother.  So we had the greatest, most wonderful collective bookshelves, but poor girl probably didn’t get to claim so many of those as her very own.  It’s almost certain that what I’m remembering is some kind of retribution, because she wasn’t a particularly possessive kid—certainly nowhere near as much as I was (let’s be honest: am).  I probably made her beg to read The Giving Tree, which I took great pride in my ownership of seeing as it had been inscribed to me by whichever friend of my parents gave it as a gift when I was born, so she punished me by withholding In the Night Kitchen.  I promise we’re much better at sharing books in adulthood!  All of that to say, the book is probably really great, but I’m not sure if I’ve read it!

Chicken Soup with Rice is another story entirely (no pun intended).  I don’t think we owned that one at my house, but my friend Talia had the Nutshell Library edition, and I seem to remember reading it at school as well.  I coveted it and contemplated buying the Nutshell collection for myself well into my teens, in part because it’s a wonderful book, and in part because tiny things are adorable.  And I read, and re-read, and re-read that book at every possible opportunity, because I felt a compulsion to memorize it.  I have a vague memory of being a tad bitter about September’s entry, which I never felt was quite as good as the others.  As a September baby, I took this very personally, but not enough to trump my love for the book, and my pride in remembering all the words.

SO, happy birthday, Maurice Sendak, and thanks very much for the memories!  Any of you have Sendak memories to share?

March 04, 2011   Rachel   favorites, historical fiction, memory, middle grade, Rachel S.  
3

Old favorites.

In light of what Jim wrote about trends this week, I started thinking back to my favorite books growing up, trying to pick apart any trends that might have existed or influenced my reading habits. What I came up with regarding the middle grade and YA books I was reading at the time was a strong lean towards historical fiction and time travel. Thinking about it, a vast majority of the stand-alone books I read between ages 10 and 15 were historical fiction. Series are a category all on their own, and I can tell you now that I’m pretty sure I devoured every single Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley book I could get my hands on.

The books I turned back to time and time again, however, were always, as I remember putting it, about “girls my age living during World War II.” I got pretty specific on that one. I don’t know if it was simply because historical fiction was what appealed to me naturally or whether there was a surplus of like books at the time. Did a trend shape the way I chose and enjoyed books as a child, or did I just have such a specific taste that I found a way to pick out the books I loved? I’m certain there weren’t too many vampires or zombies populating the YA shelves at the time, but would I have been drawn to a book like this if there was?

I’m sure this is something I’ll never work out and won’t change the facts that the books with the covers taped on dozens of times and the paged curled from too much turning will always make me smile when I remember them. The most beaten up of them all, I think, is The Switching Well by Peni R. Griffin. I don’t think I’ve ever found anyone else who’s read about Amber and Ada—one from 1999 and the other from 1899 who switch places—but I assure you, I could recite the plot in intricate detail to anyone who asked. There was a trilogy about a displaced set of siblings from England in WWII by Kit Pearson called The Guests of War and another about a time traveling Irish girl named Rosie by Ann Carroll that I read time and time again.

I own nearly every book in the American Girl series (or at least those written before 1997) and had read The Endless Steppe at least twice before we were required to in school. Is it that today’s children and teenagers don’t want to read about the past or is it that they aren’t given the opportunity or push to? Whatever the impetus, I’m interested in seeing what type of literature—farther than what the next big supernatural being to hit the shelves will be—floods the market next.

September 23, 2010   DG&B   favorites, Jessica, memory, opinion, reading  
5

The persistence of memory?

by Jessica

Yesterday someone asked me what novels I’d read while on vacation. I thought for a moment and rattled off three: Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss; Zoe Ferraris’ City of Veils; Evelyn Waugh’s Men at Arms. Hours later, I realized that I’d completely forgotten two others: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark. It’s true that I liked both and loved neither, but they were not so forgettable as to merit oblivion. I wish I could blame my literary amnesia on the impending arrival of a second baby (I am mightily pregnant and soon to deliver) but my ability to forget plotlines, characters, surprise endings, etc. predates the lethe-like mix of hormones now coursing through my bloodstream, and indeed motherhood period.
The year I moved to Cairo, I kept a journal that for some six months included a running tally of the books I read. Perusing the list, it is clear that the recall problem is not a recent one. It seems I’ve been forgetting books for much of my professional life. (Books I read as a child or in college/graduate school, however, have proven to be stickier.) And yet ironically, before I paused to remember all the books I forgot, I believed I had a good memory. Perhaps I’ve conveniently forgotten all evidence to the contrary.

Which is why I was so relieved to read James Collins’ essay in this past Sunday’s NYTBR, “The Plot Escapes Me.”  Like Collins, there are books I clearly remember loving, and yet when I am called upon to reconstruct the storyline, or a particular character, I’m at a loss. The good news is that at least one expert believes that the experience of reading is not so evanescent as we might fear, that the books we devour, adore and forget are not simply lost. Collins quotes Marianne Wolf, professor of child development at Tufts, who says that although we may not have instant recall, “The information you get from a book is stored in networks. We have an extraordinary capacity for storage, and much more is there than you realize. It is in some way working on you even though you aren’t thinking about it.”

I’d like to believe this is true, that some legacy of what we read persists, but rather worry that it isn’t. What do you think? Do the books we read affect us, even if we can’t remember them?

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