I Need More Pocket-Sized Books

I’ve been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms lately. I don’t mind as long as I have a good book to read, but I worry about forgetting it if I set it down. And since I don’t always want to carry a purse, I prefer to read something that fits in my pocket—generally known as mass market paperbacks.

Once upon a time, publishers printed many books as mass market paperbacks. They print some, but the selection is mostly limited to romance and best-selling authors, which aren’t my usual reading preferences.

Years ago, I collected Agatha Christie mass market paperbacks. I didn’t intend it as a collection at first. I just bought them to read them, and the size was perfect for taking to the doctor or the dentist or anywhere else I might have to wait. Several years ago I decided my Agatha Christie mysteries were a collection after all, albeit with a few holes. Unfortunately, when I tried to buy those missing volumes, they no longer came in the 4 X 7 inch mass market size, so my nicely arranged shelves are marred with several books that are an inch too wide and an inch too tall. And, unfortunately, those books don’t fit in my pocket.

When did publishers and readers decide that bigger is better? Maybe more people would buy paperbacks if they were easier to carry when going out. Or have we become so narcissistic that we want our books large enough so that everyone to see what we are reading and commend us for being trendy or sophisticated or intellectual?

I’d rather have a book I can put in my pocket.

A Reading Inspiration

My mother would have been 100 years old on Wednesday.

Mama gave me too many gifts to list, with the greatest being a Christian example that radiated her love for God. She taught me to sew and to love music (although not enough to motivate me to practice piano), and she also instilled in me a love of reading. This last is the subject of today’s blog.

Both my parents made sure my brothers and I were faithful library patrons. Daddy taught me to read before I went to school, and he always encouraged my interest. But Daddy’s taste was very different from mine, and it was Mama who really sparked my love for reading.

As a girl, I read many of Mama’s books. When she married Daddy, she left a number of her childhood books at the Iowa farm where she grew up, and I read them on visits to my grandparents. My favorites were the books from the “Little Maids” series by Alice Turner Curtis. I probably could have taken them home with me, but it was nice to have that special library to look forward to on our trips to Danville.

In junior high and high school, I discovered the classics Mama had read during her college days. My favorites were The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner by George Elliot. I also enjoyed Mama’s many Grace Livingston Hill romances.

Mama continued to be an avid reader until the end. Whenever I took her to the doctor or the dentist, she was sure to have a Guideposts magazine in her purse. She also subscribed to Readers Digest, two Christian romance book clubs, and several newsletters from groups active in the Middle East.

Our tastes diverged somewhat as we aged, but I’m still following Mama’s example, and I want to keep reading right up to my death just as she did.

Happy birthday, Mama.

__________

I took this picture on Mama’s 96^th birthday, which was the last one she celebrated on this earth. The other people in it are my son-in-law, Pete; my daughter, Caroline; and my older brother, Donald.

A Cover is Not the Book

Flying back from a Baltic Sea Cruise in May, I watched Mary Poppins Returns. I was struck by “A Cover is Not the Book,” a song that reminds us that we have to look inside to see what a book is really about. The central message is that you can’t judge people by superficial appearances and actions, but the lyrics are also true for books.

Look at the covers from different printings of Wuthering Heights. As you probably know, the main plot is Heathcliff’s jealousy and quest for revenge. Yes, there is a love story between Heathcliff and Catherine, but that is merely the backdrop for the primary one. The landscape is the wild English moor of the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, and there is nothing simple or idyllic about it. Neither is it moonlike. To me, none of these covers portray the contents of the book.

That isn’t an unusual fail, however. Most cover designers don’t read the book, and the author doesn’t always have approval rights over the design the publisher chooses.

But cover designs can fail even when they are within the author’s control. It happened with my middle-grade historical novel Desert Jewels. The book is about the Japanese-American incarceration during the first years of World War II, but after it was published I was told that the girl on the cover was Chinese rather than Japanese. Which only goes to prove the old adage . . .

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Tomorrow is Too Late

Lately I seem to have written a lot of posts about preserving memories, but that’s because the subject is on my mind. My mother-in-law died in February without preserving hers. One of my friends returned from a trip to Africa in early May to discover that three elderly acquaintances had died while she was gone—they had all started memoirs but never finished them. But the most significant reason is that my older brother, Donald (on the far right in the photo), has Parkinson’s Disease, and he took a turn for the worse in March as the result of a fall. I don’t know if he was planning on writing his memoirs—although it wouldn’t surprise me—but it is less likely now.

Although I had always planned on writing my memoirs someday, the operative word was “someday.” I still have other projects in the works, but “someday” has just changed to weaving it in whenever I can. I pulled some electronic resources together before Roland and I went on a Baltic Sea cruise in May, and I wrote during our down time, especially the two days at sea. I still have a long way to go but am determined to get it done as soon as possible.

My current goal is simply to record all my significant memories in one place to preserve them for my children, so once I get this informal document written, I will put it aside for a while. But if I decide to prepare it for publication, I will have the first draft done.

That’s my motivation.

What about you?

__________

The photo was taken in 1995. The other people in the photo are me and Roland, in the back, and my children, John and Caroline, in the front.