Last week, y'all identified a HaBO from author Gwen Hayes. She is most grateful – who wouldn't be, freed from the unending job of describing a book to librarians and booksellers, watching as their faces crumple into disbelief and confusion as more outlandish and disordered plot details are revealed? So Gwen would like to offer a prize!
She wants to give one of y'all a $25 gift card to the bookstore of your choice to say a big whopping thank you. So! S-HaBO-Day Givaway time!
To enter, please leave a comment and tell us one book you would never, ever want to lose, the one that will keep moving with you from home to home all the way to the retirement community with the incredibly good-looking grounds crew. Leave a comment and you're entered to win. I'll choose the winner at random on Monday, 25 February 2013 at 8:30am ET.
Standard disclaimers apply: void where prohibited. Open to international residents subject to applicable law. Must be over 18 and wearing excellent socks to win. Close cover before striking. And stop striking – didn't your mom tell you not to hit people?
Thanks to Gwen for the impromptu giveaway – hope you're enjoying your lost book!
I’m going to cheat and pick one romance and one non-romance. Before I got a kindle and I would move around a lot, I always packed Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff by Christopher Moore and These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer. I know I can always turn to them to make my day brighter.
All my current faves are ebooks, BUT as soon as they are available I’m buying them as “real” books too. So I would take Motorcycle Man with me forever!
I’m also not sentimental about my things—but I’ve moved 3 times in the past 7 years and the first things I pack (and then unpack) are my Nigella Lawson cookbooks. ^_^
Mmmmm – I’m picturing the good looking ground staff that should be at my retirement home. I think tight cargoes and no shirts should be the uniform.
As for my favourite book – this is why I bought a kindle so I didn’t have to make such decisions! Does my kindle count as a book????
Oh wow this would be hard to pick. I have lots of autographed books too so even harder. But I guess it would be: 1) Joan Wolf’s The Road to Avalon, and 2) Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign. Both are comfort reads and I reread them often. I actually have several copies scattered about that I’ve picked up over the years at used bookstores. I should write to them and ask if they’d sign copies for me…
I have to pick one not because it’s the most re-read – that would likely be The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey – but because it would be difficult to replace. It’s Don’t Go Near the Water, which was made into a movie starring Glenn Ford and was for years out of print, but is now available as a $19 (!) paperback (what is this, Australia?). What makes it extra special is that it was my dad’s copy, and the movie was one of his favorites.
There are numerous books that hold a place in my heart and on my bookshelf for myriad reasons. The majority of them have been with me for years and have been read several times over so this is really, really hard! I’m going to go with the first one that popped into my head before the others but not because any of them are any less loved or valuable to me.
My parents gave me “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith when I was twelve years old. I’d never read anything like it. A whole new world opened up for me. Each time I’ve reread it has been a fascinating journey because my understanding as a child was very different from what I took away with me at various stages of adulthood. Just writing about it now makes me want to pull it off the shelf and read it again!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, because that is the first book my son (who was 16 at the time) ever read all the way through. He had been “socially promoted” through 10th grade in spite of being functionally illiterate. We were at a bookstore one day (my favorite place—and still is) and he brought that book to me and asked me to buy the hardcover. I told him no, I would buy the paperback version, and made a deal with him. If he read it, then told me the story, I would read it and if I then believed he had ACTUALLY read it, I would not only buy him the hardcover versions that were already out, I would buy him the rest as they came out.
He did, I did and now he is a voracious reader. I cannot thank JK Rowling enough. Because of her, my son reads.
And because of my son, I found a wonderful story which I still re-read every year. (I forgot to mention that…)
“Shadow on the Skin” by Keren Gilfoyle. It was, apparently (and very sadly), her only book. It begged for a sequel.
If I’m allowed to pack a second book into my “you’ll tear this book from my hands only when I’m dead” category, I’ll throw in Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Cordelia’s Honor”.
If you’ll allow me a third book, that’d be “Jaran” by Kate Elliott.
It would be The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey. I enjoyed it so much that I have it in both paperback and ebook. That way I can read it anytime and have read it many times.
I’d hate to lose my copy of Meg Cabot’s the Princess Diaries; I’ve had it since I was thirteen and read it at least once a year. I love how neurotic the heroine is and the friendships and the two guys she was crushing on. Also Fat Louie.
When my house (and all of the books that had been living upstairs) was destroyed in a windstorm a year-and-half ago, the first book I replaced was Jan Cox Speas’ Bride of the MacHugh. When I was a child, I would see it on my mom’s bookshelf and I always wanted to read it. When I was 16, I sneaked it off her bookshelf and read it. Then I had to buy all of her other books (one of the paperback companies was re-issuing them). She introduced me to the romance genre – and I haven’t left it since!
I still need to replace my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. To be fair, it was falling apart, so a new copy was in order anyway.
My all-time favorite is Lord of the Rings. I first read it in the 8th grade and try to re-read it every year or so. My kids tell me I’m hopelessly nerdy, but I rock at LOTR trivia!
Only one? Oh, the Pain! Mackenzie’s Mountain by Linda Howard. It has to be the original paperback edition.
My original release copy of Gone With the Wind that I found in our local used book store.
Julie Garwood’s “The Wedding” is the one book I would never be without. This is my go-to book when I need a comfort read or a giggle.
The lovely copy of Little Women my Mum gave me for my 13th birthday. It’s irreplaceable because she wrote little notes in the margin like “Okay, this is my favorite part!” or “I think Jo was PMSing here.” It made me want to only ever read that copy.
Ack, I have to choose *one* out of all my comfort reads? Hmmm. Right now I’ll go for Anne Bishop’s Black Jewel omnibus containing the original trilogy (with Lois Bujold’s Memory and the Val Con/Miri story arc from the Liaden series *very* close runners-up).
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong. Although, hmm, why take it with me when I know it by heart? 🙂
Wood Nymph by Mary Balogh. I couldn’t afford the price to replace it.
Oh, kkw, you, too were exposed to age-inappropriate Great Poetry! My 3-year-old brain was partly formed (warped?) by my father’s LP recording of T.S. Eliot reading Ash Wednesday. Played over. and over. when my parent’s marriage fell apart. I really thought that Eliot was a Very Sad babysitter. And that all adults talked like that. Kindergarden was a shock.
My first cherished book memory is of Mika Waltari’s The Egyptian, which had been a best-seller the year I was born (yes, I am Old). I found it in my mother’s books when I was 10 or so, and read it obsessively for years. Beta hero! Evil courtesan! Angst, ancient brain surgery, dynastic/religious conflict! Exotic vocabulary! Secret prince! Definitely a link with the early T. S. Eliot exposure.
There are so many… (covers eyes, grabs wildly at shelf) …how about “A Splendid Defiance” by Stella Riley?
Bet Me by Jennifer Cruise. I have the paperback and I have it for Kobo!
I totally would have a problem choosing just a single title.. I guess it would be The Black Stallion (yeah, I know don’t laugh.)
I can only have one? I suppose it would be “Faking It” by Jennifer Crusie. It was my first romance novel and I still have a deep love for the Dempseys and the Goodnights.
Just to share: I know its not one book but all of Tamora Pierce’s books set in Tortall during Jonathan and Thayet’s reign move with me—meaning The Song of the Lioness Quartet, The Immortals Quartet, The Protector of the Small Quartet and The Trickster’s Choice and Queen).
When it comes to romance, Johanna Lindsy’s Gentle Rogue will never leave my bookshelf (wherever it may end up being).
I would never ever lose my copy of IT HAD TO BE YOU by SEP. It’s what started my love of romance and I seriously have a crush on Dan (and I thought Phoebe was perfect for him).
I would never want to lose my copy of Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I know it’s not romance but it is one book that I would want on a desserted island.
Whitney, My Love
Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning. It’s such a fun break from life every now and then.
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I reread it once a year.
Many years ago, my parents gave me a gorgeous leatherbound edition of the three-volume LOTR set. They’re both gone now, so it has tremendous sentimental value for me.
I have had the same copy of Lion’s Bride (by Iris Johansen) since 1996 and I don’t think I could bear to lose it.