A mug of cocoa and a baguette and soft cheddar cheese (or rosemary olive oil bread spread with goat cheese) and an apple and some fresh cookies or cake or fudge or pie and some candles and a book and an open window: this is the most romantic and lovely atmosphere that I can create for myself.
Aaaah! You've just created this atmosphere inside my head and now I want to BE there. :)
I love that you love books as physical objects. It's something I find that a lot of readers don't pay attention to, and I just don't understand that. With me it gets to the point where it's hard for me to re-read a book in a different edition from the one I read it in originally; it doesn't feel like the same book, somehow. I incorporate the physical aspects of a book (the pages, the font, the way it feels in my hands, the cover, the dedication page, etc.) into my memory of it, and it gets wrapped up in the story, and I can't separate it out.
But deliberate markings in fiction doesn't belong. It throws me straight out of the story: makes it feel like a collection of words, and not a place in which I am currently living. It makes it stop being real.
Aha! This is something I've been thinking about for a while, thank you for crystallising it for me! I realised that if a book is good, I can't stop to make marks on my first time through -- only if it's the second or third re-read -- exactly for this reason. It reminds me that the book is a book, and not reality.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-04-18 08:27 pm (UTC)Aaaah! You've just created this atmosphere inside my head and now I want to BE there. :)
I love that you love books as physical objects. It's something I find that a lot of readers don't pay attention to, and I just don't understand that. With me it gets to the point where it's hard for me to re-read a book in a different edition from the one I read it in originally; it doesn't feel like the same book, somehow. I incorporate the physical aspects of a book (the pages, the font, the way it feels in my hands, the cover, the dedication page, etc.) into my memory of it, and it gets wrapped up in the story, and I can't separate it out.
But deliberate markings in fiction doesn't belong. It throws me straight out of the story: makes it feel like a collection of words, and not a place in which I am currently living. It makes it stop being real.
Aha! This is something I've been thinking about for a while, thank you for crystallising it for me! I realised that if a book is good, I can't stop to make marks on my first time through -- only if it's the second or third re-read -- exactly for this reason. It reminds me that the book is a book, and not reality.
I am going to write down all of your nonfic recs.
Yay book memes! ♥