Over the years, readers have asked me, “Why did you choose that book?”
It's a good question.
My Love of Old Books began when I was quite young, with a collection of Gene Stratton-Porter books my parents bought for me because they knew how much I loved reading about nature. That collection grew over the years, and the love of old books has stayed with me.
As a teenager, I was especially fond of the classics and read many of them. I also read plenty of poetry. Even then, I was drawn to books that seemed to have history to them.
I read a lot of new material from publishers, agents, and authors, but I’ve continued to focus on collecting older books, and my collection keeps growing. There is just something about an old book—the feel of it, the pages, and the thought of all the hands that have held it before mine. On this page, I'll write mostly about books I have obtained since starting this blog in 2017, with a few exceptions.
Why This Book?
Memoirs: I like them and appreciate them more as I grow older. I like that they can inspire and guide readers facing similar challenges. So I picked up these four by celebrities and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy, I picked up this paperback copy at my county's recycling center. Within the first 10 pages of this story, we witness a comparison of women to property. At the mention of the reading of The Compleat Fortune Teller, we expect that there will be a life full of great sorrow and longing. As we read on, that is just what we find.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I had been watching some old interviews with Joan Didion and found myself intrigued by the way she spoke and the thoughts she shared. There was something about her that made me want to know more, so when it came time to choose a book, I asked for this one. She wrote about her husband's death while her daughter was critically ill. One of her most memorable examples involves John's shoes. She couldn't bring herself to give them away because, on some level, she thought he might come back and need them. She knew intellectually that he was dead, but grief created a strange separation between what she knew and what she could emotionally accept. How sad! She wasn't only losing her husband. She was losing the person with whom she had shared her intellectual life. She would always go to him first to ask him to read her work, and he was no longer there.
Ishmael or In the Depths by Mrs E.D.E.N. Southworth. I selected this read when I'd learned that she had been deserted by her husband and took up writing to support herself and her children. " Ishmael” comes from the Old Testament. Southworth uses the name deliberately for her central character, who is an outsider and faces rejection and hardship. The subtitle, In the Depths, hints at the difficult circumstances he must overcome. Ishmael was turned into an American silent film called Hearts of Youth.
Lucile, I went to the bookcase at the bookstore and selected the book. I don't recall ever seeing a manuscript arrangement quite like this before. This book is written in anapestic tetrameter couplets by Robert, Lord Lytton, published (1860) under the pseudonym of Owen Meredith. My copy appears to be leather-bound and 'gold-edged' with roses across the cover. The binding is in very poor condition. The cover is torn and heavily cracked, but the book pages are in great condition. When I open the cover of this copy of Lucile, I see a faint image of Lord Lytton, and there is a lovely dedication to his Father in which the author appears to be somewhat uneasy. He writes of his admiration for his Father and explains his prolonged discouragement and states how this parlays into his prolonged effort in this publication.
I picked up a lovely copy of The Short Stories of De Maupassant Book League of America, copyright 1941. He's one of the greatest French short-story writers. I appreciate that his writing style was varied, and he did a swell job of exposing human nature. He writes stories about ordinary French people, marriage, money, vanity, war, and social class, to stories involving madness, the supernatural, and psychological terror.
Jim Pickett Kekionga Series I met Jim at a Christmas Festival, and we got to talking about his series. I appreciate themes of love, tradition, and sacrifice, and they are paralleled with a good bit of dialogue. Readers get a dual perspective of Native Americans and New Americans.
Night Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel. I got this at a second-hand store. Reading a book like this makes me think outside myself. Readers are witnesses to the struggle for survival, the sexual slavery, and the deplorable and unprecedented loss of life that is taking place.
Teacher Man Frank McCourt: I picked this book up at my local thrift store. McCourt wrote this memoir a few years before his death and provides us with his interpretation of the ups and downs of his years teaching school.
Russian Fairy Tales by Marie Ponsot and Benvenuti came to me by way of the young man at the bookstore. He knows my tastes in books, and he held it back, thinking it might be to my liking. He was correct. I adore it! These older stories weren't necessarily created to put children gently to sleep. They could contain fear, death, deception, poverty, strange transformations, and moral ambiguity. That makes them interesting historical artifacts as well as entertaining stories.
The Odyssey by Homer rests on my shelves. I picked it up in the vintage section of a bookstore in another town. It's a 1944 Classics Club edition, translated by Samuel Butler and edited by Louise Ropes Loomis. As someone who enjoys diving into Greek mythology, I was excited to revisit this epic, one of the most influential works of ancient Greece.
The Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris. I purchased this book at a bookstore, and what I love about this setting is that it invites me to not only immerse myself in the present struggles of the characters but also reflect on the haunting echoes of the past — the lives and losses that stretch back generations. As I read, I found myself thinking about my own life, and about my dog, Buddy, who was lying with me. The comfort of having him at that moment was not lost on me. Then, my husband walked in and captured a photo of us which you will find at the link above. It was a simple yet meaningful moment that I was happy to preserve, ensuring it doesn’t become a forgotten memory. Our dear Buddy passed away in August 2026, and I recalled this book and photo.
I picked up an illustrated copy of Rebecca. This 375-page book is a quick read, and much of the story deals with the fear of inadequacy, abandonment, and lack of acceptance. I had a couple of reviews of this. The more detailed one is on my Substack page. I often reread Rebecca in the Fall season.
My husband surprised me with a trip to a newly opened bookstore in a nearby town, and I selected Poems by Alice and Phoebe Cary—Household Edition, published by Houghton Mifflin. Both Alice and Phoebe Cary were also contributors to The Revolution, the influential newspaper run by Susan B. Anthony. The sisters' involvement in the suffrage movement and their support for social change gives their poetry even more depth and relevance.
I chose selections of James Whitcomb Riley and William Somerset Maugham from a second-hand bookstore as my 2023 Christmas gift. I loved nostalgia and old illustrations. I liked the connection to The Riley Hospital for Children. And Maugham could quietly expose the difference between what people say they believe and how they actually behave.
My 2022 Christmas gift included Beside Lake Beautiful, William Quayle, I'd actually read the description and thought this book would be right up my alley. Quayle was very much a bookish preacher. He quoted poetry and literature freely and believed that beautiful language could help people think about deeper things.
You can never have too many copies of Frankenstein. Here's one I picked up. Shelley used 3 narrators' perspectives in Frankenstein. Most people will tell you that it's created this way so one might understand the complexities of time and the structure of the novel. I believe Mary may have used 3 perspectives because she was in competition with Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and physician John Polidori to see who could create the best horror story. And Mary likely imagined each of them narrating different scenes as a way to boost her own creativity.
I received a gift certificate from co-workers for a bookstore, so I put it to good use. One of my purchases was The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. The other was the Jane Austen The Collectible Editions Series, which contains seven of her novels. I have many copies of Jane Austen's novels, but this is the only one with seven together. These women couldn't be more different in the way they wrote, yet both had a remarkable ability to find something meaningful in ordinary life. Austen observed people, relationships and all the little details of society, while Dickinson turned inward and found poetry in nature, love, death and the everyday moments around her. Both women also became much more widely appreciated after their deaths. I love that I can still discover something new in the words of women who lived so long ago.
I have many editions of Edgar Allan Poe. Among my favorites is an older edition titled The Best Known Works of Edgar Allan Poe. The same writer we associate with “The Raven” and dark, haunting tales also helped create the literary ancestor of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and countless modern detectives.
For 2021, I selected The Battle of Life A Love Story, which is an 1846 novel by Charles Dickens. This was selected because I'm quite smitten with Dickens. His keen eye for observation and exaggeration of characters' traits amuse me. Dickens appears fascinated by the idea that people can “win” life's battles by giving something up rather than by defeating someone else.
For those who wrote and asked what book I was gifted for Christmas in 2018, it was the 1855 copy of The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I adored this story and cover and thought I needed to add it to my collection. I reread it the day we bought it. It's written in a poetic rhythm called trochaic tetrameter.
King Lear graphic novel was purchased at Hyde Bros Bookstore. I loved that Hinds shows Lear's deteriorating state visually rather than relying entirely on the reader to imagine it.
The Curiosity Shop is another Charles Dickens novel. I don't recall where I purchased it. The novel was originally published in installments in Dickens' weekly periodical Master Humphrey's Clock in 1840–41. Readers had to wait for each installment. As Nell's story progressed, people became desperate to know whether she would survive. There are stories of American readers waiting at the docks for ships carrying the newest installment, calling out to arriving passengers asking, essentially, “Is Little Nell dead?” I adore my book and find the faded cover is beautiful.
Borrowed Water: A Book of American Haiku, by Los Altos Writers Roundtable Staff, has over 300 poems. I picked it up at Hyde Bros Bookstore in Indiana. American haiku can take something incredibly ordinary—a bird, rain, a leaf, a fence, a moment outside—and make you stop and actually look at it.The familiar 5–7–5 pattern is a simplified way Americans often learn haiku. I'm informed that traditional Japanese haiku operate differently.
The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1876. While the cover of this book is loose and the first few pages are well worn, the content itself is an interesting read, and I appreciate the historical notes in the back of the book. Whittier's poetry often captures something that can be easy to overlook—the ordinary moments that become precious memories. He was deeply involved in the abolitionist movement and used his writing to oppose slavery.
While the cover of this book is loose and the first few pages are well worn, the content itself is an interesting read, and I appreciate the historical notes in the back of the book.
I attended a Fall Festival, and a vendor was selling a few older books. I was thrilled to purchase a 1943 hardbound copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I also have a Manga Classic of Jane Eyre.Charlotte initially received some criticism because Jane Eyre was considered too passionate and unconventional for some Victorian reviewers of the time. I love that Jane doesn't want to be rescued simply because she's a woman. She wants to be loved without becoming less of herself.
Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was my 2017 gifted book, and I have many different copies of it. I read it as a child and feel it teaches so many valuable lessons.
Steam Dummy & Fragments From The Fire is autographed, and I've had it since its publication. It was a gift from my husband. This wonderful book connects American labor history, poetry, women's history, family history, and Ohio literary publishing all in one volume.
How Far is Far? poems of Peter Hilty is signed by the author but not addressed to me. I picked it up in a bookstores ages ago and have feld onto it. Many of the poems look back toward his Missouri childhood and his family's life.
