Here and Now, There and Then

There are two kinds of readers in the world: those who re-read books, and those who don't. As you may have gathered by this point, I'm in the former category. I have such a voracious appetite for stories that I tend to get my books from the library, because to purchase them all would a)bankrupts me and b)leave me without room to move about the apartment. Some books, however, are worth investing in for the long-term. And I'm not just talking about money- no, shelf space (and the willingness to shlep the weight back and forth across the country) is worth far more than money (which is why most of the books I do bother to buy end up given to someone else). So if I'm going to not just purchase a book but also keep on the shelf, it's going to be a book that I'll want to re-read. Multiple times. (Or, you know, a reference book- but that's another entry entirely).

Most of these books that I invest shelf-space in are books that I find comforting to read. Something that, if I'm sick or just having a bad day, I can pick up and will feel better by reading. That's not to say they're all happy books (they're not), but they're all populated by characters with whom I feel I've established a relationship. I've become emotionally invested in their adventures, and re-visiting them is like re-visiting old friends. Which, as I've mentioned, is comforting. Furthermore, there's something so nice about the fact that even if a beloved character dies, I can always go back to the beginning, where they are still (and always shall be) alive. It was Heinlein who made me think about that as it applies to the real world- he has a novel in which time-travel allows certain characters to travel back before a blast that killed someone they loved. As they watch her moving about in their past, one of them comments how strange and comforting to know that this time (in which she is alive and happy) always exists, whether or not they're in it.

Ironically enough, it's a time-travel novel that I'm re-reading at the moment: Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. There are currently seven novels in the series, but it's this first one that I return to time and again (and therefore the only one I've devoted shelf-space to). The love story between the protagonists is so real (warts and all), and so poignant, that it makes me smile and get all squinchy every time I revisit them. It doesn't hurt that Nathan's on the road again, which always makes me nostalgic in general...