No doubt this has been one of the most peculiar weeks I have lived through. It started with fear and ended in anger with a small respite in between. I think this week was like that for a lot of people.
It had been my plan – and still is – to read some of those books that are on the shelves in The Story Cellar that I have never managed to read. I was planning on starting with Thoreau’s Walden. I have started it, but I will admit that I am struggling with it. Right now, I need comfort books.
Comfort books to me are familiar. They are books I have come across at various points of my life, and they have given me something. Knowledge. A respite. A dream. Hope.
Shogun by James Clavell found me at a point in my life when I had lost all my dreams, and my beloved grandmother. I read it when I find myself in a world I did not choose, but that I must accept and find a way to live in. It was the book that helped me rebuild my dreams.
The Change by Kirsten Miller showed up when I was burned out by trying to fit in. It showed me I can go my own way, I do not need to fit into any mould. It’s also about a cabal of powerful men abducting young girls so re-reading it proved Derrida’s point that meaning is different and deferred.
Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety was always by my bedside during the dark year that preceded me finding Shogun. I painstakingly copied out quotes from it, printed them out and had five A4 pages covering my walls in blue and red ink.
“She said that I was not the type of girl to make a fuss. I had to be told that quite often these days or who knows, I might have forgotten, and made one.”
“Try to accept this truth, Maximilien. Most people are lazy, and will take you at your own valuation. Make sure the valuation you place on yourself is high.”
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows was one I originally bought for my mother. I saw it on her bookshelf the day after my father died and picked it up for something to do while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. I was instantly drawn in and I carried it with me all around the apartment during those dark days, sneaking off to snatch two minutes alone to read. It gave me hope. It was a long time since a book had pulled me in so strongly, and even though it felt as though the world had just ended, there was still a part of me left breathing. The Reader.
Comfort Books.
We all need them. We all need a break. We all need hope.