Worth Buying Twice

I'm not sure what percentage of my books I would buy a second time if something were to happen to them. For some it would be a given. Others would be mourned but not replaced—there are a few that are not easily replaceable. I guess I would live without them, barring fortune smiling on me.

When I say mourn, I mean that. I would think of my lost books often and with sadness.

Of course there are some that would simply be out of sight and out of mind (yes, I do have a catalogue, so not entirely vanished from memory digitally). Or I might encounter the title at a later date and wonder "Did I have this book at one time?"

The Lost Library

In my last post I wrote about losing a library from my university years. It was entirely genre fiction and entirely paperback. There were lots of titles in there that I haven't thought of since, so clearly they didn't leave a mark. There's one that makes my jaw clench when I think about it being gone and un-re-readable. I have the story in my head (most of it) and tell it to myself over and over to help me remember it. But I will likely never get it back. The author was new. It was their first book. I don't remember their name, nor the darned title. That's why it's gone for good. Irritating.

I took the name of one of the characters from that novel and gave it to a recurring character in my own stories. She's got a backstory that could point to this lost novel if somebody was paying attention. This isn't plagiarism, and it's not fan-fiction. She's entirely different as a character in my stories and so are the circumstances of her history, but my Diandra is a tribute to this lost heroine.

 In that same library-losing event I lost C.J. Cherry books—several of them. One was Merchanter's Luck and Another was The Pride of Chanur. Luckily for me a friend lent me her collection of Cherryh books, and has so far not returned to pick them up years later. I stopped reminding her that I have them. They'll always be hers, but their solid presence in my library is appreciated. What my friend collected was SF, though. She doesn't have any of the fantasy books, so there are some gaps in the Cherryh section.

The Snow Queen

Another book I bought a second time was The Snow Queen. I might have mentioned it in another post, but I apparently didn't cover enough of it to warrant a photo. The version of The Snow Queen I had as a child likely came from cousins. My parents provided us with books, but they were almost always encyclopedias. I think my Little Golden Book Story of Jesus's birth was a present from my mother. We had no other children's books. No Dr Suess, or any other picture books besides the two I've mentioned here.
The Snow Queen was special. It was REALLY special. The picture on the front cover was 3D! It was like holding magic and I used to stare at it, feeling like I could reach in and touch the dolls that portrayed the main characters.

Inside, besides the text and some rather normal line-drawing illustrations, there were more photographs of dolls dressed and posed. Like the stop-motion movies that I'm still very much into (Nightmare before Christmas, Boxtrolls, Isle of Dogs etc.), I just adored this book. It was like stopped-motion, I guess.

I kept it, because I kept everything, and had that book when I was sixteen and got kicked out of my home. There was no going back. My mother brought me some few things, but even those had to be carefully chosen. All I had was a steamer trunk (sounds way more romantic than it frigging was) to hold my possessions as I moved about from couch to couch, then rooming houses, then apartments. By the time I was settled, there was only a tiny amount of my things that got saved. The book was not among these—most of it.


Mom was delighted to hand me the 3D picture from the front. There had been some incidents at my old childhood home. At least one involved a flood. She said that the book had become rank and she couldn't stand the smell, but took off the front piece for me because she knew I loved that book. I appreciated it, trust me, but it made me sad, too. So, I went in search of another copy of the book.

(Thank You Internet)

I found it. Eventually several copies of it—but not on the first or second, or even third attempt. It was YEARS of searching. This is partly because The Snow Queen was a very popular story and there were many other versions of it. When I found the right words to track down the kind I had, I bought the one that was in the best shape. Getting that little, slightly beat-up children's book was a real high point. I won't lose it again.

My library has two children's sections. There's a set of books for children that I will let children read (touch, hold, leave my presence with), and a section that is for me alone (sorry, you know I love you, but no). This book shares the shelf with some of the more costly or experimental pop-up books.

The Harbrace

The Harbrace College Handbook

So, this one might be a little harder to understand. The Harbrace College Handbook for Canadian Writers has no whimsy, no romantic appeal at all. It's a reference book that students use to create essays that aren't embarrassments to their programs. It wasn't even mine. When I went through university, I used Scholarly Writing in the Humanities, which was rather more like a thick pamphlet than a book.

Very easy to use reference book

Nope. The Harbrace was my wife's. She didn't write a lot in her program. I borrowed it for some questions I had regarding semicolons and realized it was exceptionally well laid out. So, I kept using it. Years later, one of the people who worked for me asked if I could help her husband write his book. Usually, when somebody asks that, what they mean is for me to write the book in their name.

This fellow wanted to know how he could be a better writer. So, I loaned him my Harbrace. I was very clear that he needed to return it after. He did not. He moved to BC, instead and, one can only imagine, took the book with him.

Disgruntled, and unable to retain anything useful about semicolons, I went looking for a replacement. Alas, the world of writing had moved on. The Chicago Manual of Style is now in fashion and Harbrace (apparently) not. Several years of ground teeth later I finally gave up and ordered a replacement (Thank you internet).

A darned expensive replacement.

My cat displaying her opinion of this book

What is a book? What about a book makes somebody lay out over a hundred dollars when the content it harbours is now out of style? What makes me seek out a replica of a children's story that is readily available in other formats? How is it that I feel so much better having with me a borrowed copy of a story I enjoyed, even though I'll never claim it as my own?

There is something in the relationship between collector and book that isn't on the page or in the binding, yet somehow contains the soul of those bits. My relationship to The Snow Queen ran much deeper than the story, as did my love for Merchanter's Luck. My admiration for the Harbrace was much more important than my need to stay trendy (like I'm trendy!).

I know for a fact that it's not the exact book. It's another copy. It's not something I've actually held before, Something got fulfilled with the re-purchase of these doppelgänger books. Something that came from their solidity, but contained no small measure of my nostalgia. I must be trying to capture moments in time. Maybe these books are like photographs in old albums. To look at them is to hold that part of my life again.

Something deep like that, I'm sure.