mom + books

My favorite place to find books has always been my mother's bookshelf. When I was a wee non-reader, my brother and I played library there and scribbled in all the pages. When I was home for breaks in college, I would take books to read at random and find out later they were the same copies that my mom read in college, her notes still in the margins. It made me feel so close to my mom knowing that we were reading the same books and having similar (or different) thoughts at the same age. The books were like living histories: next to my mom's underlined passages were my and my brother's childhood scribbles and then my own notes as well.

I've never outgrown borrowing books from my mother and recently I took Barbara Pym's Jane and Prudence. What I love about my mom's books is that they are often things I never would have found on my own. Such was the case with this little joy of a book that had some incredible yet subtle feminine insights as well as a fantastic anti-climax ending. The smallness of the story was surprising in a good way. I kept waiting for something to happen, while remaining totally engaged when nothing ever really did.

Another thing I love is when I discover a book or writer on my own, call my mom to tell her about it and find out that she's had the book on her shelf the whole time. I've heard that if you want to raise readers, it's more important for your children to see you reading than it is to read to them (though that is obviously important too!). My mom always had a book while I was growing up and I am thankful for that.

 Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you. xo