Those who love, take care (of their books)
Warning: this post is a declaration of love.
Love for books is still love, so it doesn’t really matter what kind of love it is.
I know there are some girls out there (with whom I’ve already spoken a few times about this) who, like me, are fans of the Mists of Avalon saga, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Maybe there are even some guys who’ve read these books too, who knows? I’d love it if you’d speak up if that’s the case. 🙂
But maybe, even to the people I’ve talked to about this in recent years, I never told that I started reading these books when I was 10 or 11 years old. I believe I started the summer I turned 11. I was at my family’s farm, on a sunny, warm day, and the garden was especially beautiful then, with its tall trees creating the perfect shade for me to begin my reading.
And so I started the first pages of The Mistress of Magic, curiously the only volume missing from the main photo of this post. And why? Because I read it all during those holidays at the farm, and since I never carried it back and forth, it never got damaged.
The ones you see in the photos below, all ruined, have the following explanation: after finishing the first volume, I became obsessed with this saga and with the Arthurian legends. You can’t imagine how crazy I was about these books. Alongside Harry Potter (I started The Philosopher’s Stone shortly after finishing The Mistress of Magic), The Mists of Avalon marked the end of my childhood and the beginning of my teenage years, leaving lifelong marks.
Because of these books, I was happier.
Because of these books, I let my imagination run free and created my own stories and imagined worlds that kept me away from bad company and poor choices at such a crucial time in my life and the building of my personality and identity.
Because of these books, I strengthened friendships, lending my copies to friends who, like me, were deeply moved by these stories and characters.
It was because they were read so many times and carried so often in our backpacks that my Mists of Avalon books fell apart and tore. The use was real and intense.
So, years and years later, when I found them on sale with the original covers at a little book fair at the Faculty of Arts (where I studied) for €5 each, I couldn’t resist buying them new to replace the old ones on my shelves.
Because when you love, you take care. When books make us as happy as The Mists of Avalon made me, it’s worth replacing them to remember them as they were, without ever throwing away the old, damaged ones. They contain so much History that I could never bring myself to part with them completely
Lonely Castle in the Mirror”: an unforgettable emotional journey
