BOOKISHGAL

I know I’m not the only person who does this. Do you keep a list of all the books you’ve read, and the dates on which you’ve finished them? I know people out there do it just like I do. I also keep track of whether it’s the first time for the book, or whether it’s a re-read. (And since I’ve started reviewing books for Library Thing and other places, I’m now also noting whether or not it’s a review book.)

I’ve been doing this since mid-1978. (Why yes, I was reading in the womb, why do you ask?)

And every now and then I pull out the notebook in which I keep this list, and just look back over the many, many books I’ve read in the intervening thirty (eeek!) years. Sometimes to find out when was the first time I ever read a specific book (The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay: March 6, 1986. Oh, that first time, filling my veins with light! I, Claudius, by Robert Graves: June 23, 1979. Wicked, wonderful book!)

And 26 years ago today, in 1982 - though it wasn’t my first read (it was, in fact, at least my sixth, if not seventh, but the first time would have been before I started keeping records) - The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien. And two days later, I finished Voyage to Venus, by C.S. Lewis. I love being able to look back and see that I was filling my holiday season with books I loved.

The following year, on the same date, I finished Ovid’s Metamorphoses. And the year after that (1984), it was Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens.

I sure get around, don’t I, on December 20th?

Or I did, anyway. I didn’t finish another book on this date until eight years later (1992), when I finished Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankel. Whoa! Heavy stuff.

And that’s it. I haven’t finished a book on December 20th since 1992. Nor will I do it this year either (though I might manage it tomorrow). But some day, within the next 30 years or so, there will probably be more. And I’ll write them down in my little black (okay, it’s actually red) book. And look back on them, too, and reminisce.

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