Books ℞ “Take and Read”

I have loved books since before I could read, and I have read for strength and comfort since that first magical moment when marks on a page suddenly coalesced into meaning and gave my imagination wings to fly. (See my essay By the Light of Fiction.)

Over the years books have, to borrow the words of a favorite prayer, blessed and guided me wherever I was, strengthened me in times of trial, comforted me when I was discouraged or sorrowful, and raised me up when I have fallen.

Consequently, my respect for the guiding, sustaining, challenging, enlightening, cheering, healing, transforming power of the written word is wide and deep—and I confess that my longing to share these treasures with others can sometimes resemble evangelical zeal.

“Drink this,” firm voices are frequently heard to command or invite in stories of all kinds—from the angel bringing water to Elijah in the desert to Lucy offering her healing cordial to the wounded at the Battle of Beruna in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe—to Alice in Wonderland finding the magical shrinking potion labeled “drink me”—and Aunt Beast feeding and healing the injured Meg in A Wrinkle in Time.  All sorts of true-story accounts of mountain rescue and domestic crises echo the offer of life-saving elixirs. “This” might be a swallow of brandy or hot sweet tea or soup or cool water—but it invariably affords aid and comfort as needed—like the chocolate administered at Hogwarts as an antidote to an encounter with the soul-destroying Dementors in the Harry Potter books.

All my life I have been grateful to those who have offered me that sort of aid and comfort in the form of books—from my mother giving me her own carefully saved childhood treasures and putting Narnia into my hands, to kind librarians who directed me along the endless-seeming shelves of my hometown’s Carnegie library, to college professors and dear friends who have introduced me to authors (and thereby to worlds) I might never have discovered on my own. My debt to all of them is beyond words.

My own strong instinct, similarly and reciprocally, has long been to urge those I know in extremis of any kind to “read this; it will help.”

And my lifelong habit of omnivorous reading has filled my mind with lists of books as an apothecary might keep shelves of remedies on hand to meet any need in any situation.

bookworm painting carl spitzwegFamily and friends over the years have good-naturedly accommodated my (doubtless often annoying) habit of pressing books upon them. Sometimes they actually seem to appreciate my recommendations; from time to time they even ask me to prescribe something specific: a book to cheer the small lonely hours of a sleepless night, or beguile a long tedious journey, to amuse a convalescent or assuage grief or lift the fog of confusion, or open a window to the light when one feels trapped in the dark.

Many of those books appear in the lists that follow—which I cheerfully admit are partial, biased, completely personal, totally idiosyncratic, non-schematic, far from exhaustive (so far from exhaustive that I’m sure I’ll be adding to them all from time to time, as well as adding whole new categories). These lists reflect not only my own preferences but my limitations: you will see that my apothecary shelves don’t hold much in the way of biography, history or politics for instance (see my husband for recommendations in those areas).

But I hope you may find some old friends in these titles, or make new ones—or best of all, decide to start making your own lists of books to remember with gratitude and delight, and to recommend to friends and family of your own.

Literary Recommendations for All Sorts of Times and States of Mind