March 3, 2015

World Book Day 2015

March 5 is World Book Day, and if you’ve been reading Pigtown*Design for any amount of time, you know I am a total bibliophile. The houses where I grew up had great libraries and I’d spend hours in there, poking through my father’s books. And in my houses, I’ve always had bookcases filled with the books I’ve collected over a lifetime. 387

The earliest book I remember we hand-me-downs from my cousins, my siblings and I being the youngest set of 28 first cousins. There were poetry books by A.A.Milne, including Now We Are Six, and When We Were Very Young. I can still recite bits and pieces of these poems that I learned all those years ago. These were the books with the beautiful evocative illustrations by E.H. Shepard, not the hideous Disney ones. image

When I got old enough to read on my own, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, and I still do. I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and all of the other serial books that were popular. One of my favourite books was Harriet the Spy. imageAnother one I loved with the crazily-named From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. image

Since my father worked in a museum, and we had the run of the place, this book always resonated with me.

There have been periods when I’ve read less than at other times, but if I am sitting still, I am probably reading something. I love sitting at breakfast on Saturday mornings reading the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal, both of which have excellent weekend sections. image

Of course, I have dozens of great decorating books, which I love to slowly peruse and examine the details in each of the rooms. imageI am not much for styling my bookshelves, although it does happen!

You can’t even imagine how happy it makes me to work in a place with a stacks library with more than 50,000 books. Each time I venture up there, I find something new… and it’s not always books. Our ghost occasionally leaves me things to find like portraits and old picture frames. image

In honour of World Book Day 2015, I hope that you will share your best-loved books in the comments!

22 comments:

  1. What a fun post this was. How wonderful that you were allowed access to the museum your father worked in. I've often thought how lucky I am to have spent so much time in the great museums of London as a child and I know I caught the curiosity and collecting bug from these places.

    Gosh, some of my favorite reads nowadays are blogs to be truthful. Reading a proper book is a true luxury as I have so much else to occupy my time. I have a lovely canterbury filled with decorating and history books besides my favorite chair and I always grab one whenever I sit in it with my cup of tea. We also have a library filled to the brim with my husband's books and my own. I could not imagine living in a house without books.

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    1. Thanks! It was a lot of fun having the run of the place. I cut the blog back to three days because I realized I wasn't reading anymore and I missed it a lot.

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  2. I could ramble on forever with the books I loved as a child, but instead I would like to encourage your readers to try the fabulous Patrick Melrose novels by contemporary British author Edward St. Aubyn. They are highly autobiographical and an absolutely fantastic read. One reviewer says "Extraordinary ... acidic humor, stiletto-sharp ... gorgeous, golden prose ,,,."

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  3. I grew up in korea before the age of the Internet and Amazon. That meant no public libraries except for the one on the U.S. military base and my school library. Books were precious. I ended up reading the newspaper and magazines bc I had gone through all books my age. I don't tend to read as many books perse now but then there's many more outlets to read. Even though london isn't perfect I love how msny papers there are snd albeit I don't agree with all of them I love the choices here.

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    1. I forgot our local library. We were allowed to walk there, and I remember being so excited when I had my own library card, and didn't have to use my mother's. I love all of the papers in London! You're lucky that they're still kicking.

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  4. Probably my favorite blog post, yet! I share your love for books and feel comfort and satisfaction from full bookshelves. Favorite childhood books: any by Lois Lenski, Mistress Masham's Repose by T H White, the All-of-a-Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor, etc., etc, etc....I can spend hours lost in a bookshop!

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    1. Thanks, Ricki! I can spend hours in a book shop, too! And we're lucky to have The Book Thing - all free books.

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    2. Oh, I envy you The Book Thing! If you can find "Mistress Masham's Repose," I think you would enjoy it, even as an adult.

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  5. "It" just wiped out my carefully crafted post. :(

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  6. I'd like to hear more about your ghost!

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    1. Here's a piece I wrote about her for my work blog.
      http://medchiarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/marcia-marcia-marcia.html

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  7. My grandmother got me started reading as a kid (and as any other child of the 80s will say, the Pizzahut book club!) and I remember LOVING the 'Lion, Witch, and the wardrobe', the 'Anne of green gables' series, and 'From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' too! I still read quite a bit -i just finished reading the entire Mary Poppins series (after seeing the movie 'saving Mr Banks' last year) and just started on 'the corrections' by Jonathan Franzen. my favorite books of all time though that I've read 100 times or more are 'Rebecca' by Daphne duMaurier and Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina".

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    1. I have some of the original MP books, and should re-read them!

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  8. i love books also + a fond remembrance is daddy reading me a book + he was always asleep before I was. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

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  9. Great post! As a child I had several favorites I read over and over: The Wind in the Willows, The Wizard of Oz, Little Women...During the most active phase of my career as a non-profit executive, I didn't have time to read much beyond professional relevance. Now semi-retired and working on my dissertation, I read a lot of great stuff related to feminist spirituality/religion, but I also have time to indulge my raging inner anglophile...mostly bio- and autobiography. Testament of Youth (Vera Britton), Daughter of Empire (Pamela Hicks), the Viceroy's Daughters (Anne de Courcy), Nancy Lancaster (both Becker & Wood). And lately I've been obsessed with gardening memoir: ALL of Beverley Nichols, the two recent books about Sissinghurst one written by Adam Nicolson, the other by his wife Sarah Raven...on and on I go... LOVE having more time to read at this stage of life....it's like a freedom to follow my interests down any rabbit hole I stumble into and find interesting.

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    1. You and I could have a wonderful conversation because I adore the titles and authors you've mentioned. Viceroy's Daughters so compelling, love Anne de C. I have read a bio of Beverley Nichols but, oddly, none of his books. Which would you recommend to start?

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  10. I read Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, all the Lad/Trehune books kept the little book nook beside the stairs in my mom's best friend's farm house. I can still remember the feel of it. We went for several weeks every summer. It was so hot in the attic bedroom but I loved the place on a rainy day or as a rest after riding the horses along the river all day. I also read sitting in the top of a special tree at home. Black Stallion, National Velvet, Jack London books too.

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  11. Great post...my list of favorite authors and publications is lengthy and includes GK Chesterton, John Cheever, Wallace Stevens, Evelyn Waugh and many, many more. I do not live to far from you. If I may ask, where do you get your FT Weekend? I have yet to find an outlet that reliably has it in stock.

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