Books. (Pt. 1)

     Today is Margaret Laurence's deathiversary ('anniversary of death' sounds really bulky and strangely celebritory - why not simplify?).  In tribute to this, and since I live very close to Lakefield (where she lived for over 10 years), I decided to look into where exactly her house is located, and what type of museum existed there.  Turns out, someone owns the house and although there is a memorial plaque, that is all there is.  Disappointing.  I didn't go to see it.

      So then I decided to write today's blog about books - in particular, favourite books.  I suppose I should mention that Laurence's The Diviners is my favourite book, so it was an easy stretch.  I went on Twitter (which, if anyone has read more than one of these and happened to start at the first, knows I am very new at) and posed the question, "What is your favourite book?".  I got no responses.

     NONE.  Do people not read?  Maybe the question is too hard.  I'd have a hard time stating my favourite movie or band, so I guess I understand.  I just remember that I was bedridden when reading The Diviners and when I got to the end I didn't want it to be over so badly that I read it again immediately and when I had read it twice proclaimed that it was the best book I'd ever read.  I haven't felt the urge to do that after finishing a book since then, so even thought the original pronouncement was made nearly 20 years ago, I still give that as my answer.  

     So I could go on and talk about my other favourite books and what I'm reading right now, which seems a bit pretentious to me (but nonetheless is one of my favourite things to write about), and probably I'll talk about that another day, but today has been really long, so rather than not post today, I'll have to go with an abbreviated post.  

     And a message to the universe...Thanks for writing books, Margaret Laurence.  I really loved reading them.