A love affair with books

I've been trying to remember a time when I wasn't enamored of reading, but I can't recall one. So many of my memories revolve around books. We always had shelves of them in the house where I grew up and I've had a library card card for so long I can't remember when I first got it. I do remember waiting with dwindling patience for the newest Beverly Cleary book to hit either the school or neighborhood library, though. And seriously envying Sue Miller who got to work in the library and therefore got her hands on them before I did.

Around the fifth grade I came across The Witch of Blackbird Pond and discovered my first non-fairytale historical. It knocked my socks off.

My oldest brother read the Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ian Fleming series, so I tried some of those as well. I liked them well enough, but I loved Lord of the Flies, which I read in the 6th grade. Unfortunately it was ruined for me in junior high school when we had to dissect the story to its most obscure bit of symbolism, which I bet Golding did not have in mind as he was writing the book. Does any thirteen year old actually care about that crap? All I cared about were the words woven in such a way as to impress themselves in my mind forever. ("Sucks to your Asmar, Piggy.")

For years my favorite book was Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristol. I must have reread that book, all 700 pages of it, a dozen times.

Then I found Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn, and developed a thirst for all the Gothics I could lay my hands on. If it had a cover with a woman in a nightie fleeing a dark castle with one light burning in its tower window, I was your girl.

Somewhere in that period, I was rummaging through my folks books and came across Mary Stewart's Madam, Will You Talk? And I dropped gothics like a hot spud and it was all Women in Jeopardy all the time. Mary was queen as far as I was concerned, but Charlotte Armstrong, Celia Fremlin and T.E. Huff ran close seconds. I loved those books to death, but did wish they had a leetle more hands-on romance and--dare I say it?--sex in them. I mean, please. Describe that kiss! And c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, would it kill ya to leave that bedroom door open a crack?

I read loads of Harlequin/Mills and Boon, but ultimately gave them up because I hated that the millionaire old guy treated the virginal 20 year old like crap right up until the final page, practically, when he suddenly declared his undying love. Huh? And I was supposed to believe this how when I was never in his point of view and there was certainly no showing his feelings that I could find.

Then in 1972 I picked up a little book called The Flame and The Flower.
And.
Oh.
My.
Gawd.
It had romance to burn. And the sexual tension? Lordy, Lordy, lemme tell you my sistahs (and brotha) it was thigh-clenching. Finally, FINALLY, here was a book that didn't slam the bedroom door in my face, yet it wasn't just about folks in heat, folks--but a man and a woman in love.
And it opened up a whole new world of reading to me, with authors like Jennifer Wilde (who was T.E. Huff, I believe) and Johanna Lindsey and Rosemary Rogers (who I had some issues with), then broadened my horizons even further by introducing me to the contemporaries of Stephanie James and Robin James and Elizabeth Lowell and oh, so many others.

I tend to read everything I can get my hands on, but romance remains my all time favorite genre to this day. Yet my very favorite book in the world? To Kill A Mockingbird. I remember when my Sweet Baby Boy was in high school and he came dragging home kvetching because he had to read it. He was into Stephen King and Nobody but Stephen King at the time. (sound like anyone else I've described???) I slapped my hand to my heart and said, "Oh! I looooove that book. It's got everything, kid: beautiful writing, wonderful characters and a story that will make you laugh and break your heart all at the same time."

I'm thrilled to report that he fell in love with it every bit as much as I did. But how 'bout you? What books rocked your world and stand out in your mind to this day?

Lemme know. Cuz I just might need to check them out to see what I've been missing.