It’s that moment when a song is played that you haven’t heard in years.  Suddenly you’re whisked away back in time to a moment of sweet nostalgia and one that you haven’t actually thought about in quite a while. Can’t it be the same for books?

I recently read an article on BookRiot about listening to audiobooks.  The author would listen to audiobooks while going on walks.  Soon, strolling through certain gardens brought back memories of the book she listened to while walking there, thus linking together her physical and literary worlds.

I think this could be the same for print books.  Sometimes when I look at my bookshelf, I’ll get a flashback to a memory of how that specific book got there.  I picked up a copy of Sophie Kinsella’s novel Shopaholic and Baby at a library book sale after visiting a fall festival in upstate New York about seven years ago.  I haven’t read it yet (the ever growing to-read pile is another post all in itself), but looking at it on my bookshelf brings back a flood of memories that make me smile if only for a moment. 

The same can be said with physically reading print books.  Sometimes we pick up a book at a certain point in our life when we need those words the most.  Whether we are going through something emotionally draining or exhilarating, the novels themselves have the power to pull us back to that specific moment in our life when we first read them.  The stories themselves then end up producing stories for us.  

What’s a book that brings back a memory for you – either one that you read or one that you haven’t quite gotten around to reading yet? 

-Jessica Bielen, Adult Services Librarian