Library

This week, there are many interesting prompts for the Writer’s Workshop. I am still thinking I might write on a different prompt tomorrow, but usually I don’t get to it. Today, I’m choosing the prompt about memoirs, biographies or reference books. They are, after all, my favorite genre to read.

I was not an avid reader as a child. Still am not a voracious reader, but I did discover the love of reading through memoirs and autobiographies. When I was in my late teens, I briefly was a member of the UK’s national library for the blind. They sent me Braille books. Yes, the clunky hardcover volumes (often eight or more per book).

I usually chose memoirs. Among my favorites were Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto and Emma and I by Sheila Hocken.

The first is an autobiography by a person blind from the same eye condition I have. If I’m correct, Kuusisto had some vision as a child but lost it later on, like I did too.

The second, which is the first in several books, talks mostly about the author’s experience of getting a guide dog.

I eventually got kicked off the library service for losing two volumes of a book, I’m not sure which one, in the mail back to them. However, this experience is probably what got me to love memoirs and autobiographies.

I currently often read foster care memoirs. My favorite authors are Casey Watson and Maggie Hartley. Cathy Glass is good too, but she stopped writing.

I recently discovered a new-to-me foster care memoirist, Louise Allen. That’s not entirely correct: I had heard of her a while ago, but because her books have horribly nondescript titles like Jacob’s Story, I didn’t fancy reading them. Now I am currently reading Jacob’s Story and think it’s fascinating. I must say though that the book is really a crossover between fiction and memoir, since the author writes from perspectives other than her own too. That makes it all the more intriguing, but I’m not entirely sure the books would count as memoirs.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is about books you’ve read that you’d add to your personal library. What is meant are books that you don’t own a physical copy of and wish you did. Well, I can’t quite use physical books, as I can’t read print and Braille books are very clunky. However, there are still books I wish I owned that I borrowed from the library. Here goes.

1. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I read it in its Dutch translation in one of my last years in primary school and, though I didn’t enjoy it that much at the time, I’d love to read the original English right now. My father read it in English at the same time that I read it in Dutch.

2. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. My father read my sister and me the best Dutch translation by Nienke van Hichtum. This yet again isn’t a book I’d necessarily want a physical copy of, though that’d be nice, but I’d love to read it in its original language.

3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read this in my senior year of high school. Though I easily accessed it online back then, legally or not I’m not entirely sure, I would love to own a copy.

4. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green. I borrowed this one from the UK’s National Library for the Blind and actually read it as a physical Braille book. Back then, you could send Braille books free of postage anywhere and the NLB offered its service to international customers. Bookshare, the U.S.-based online accessible book service, at the time didn’t, which was the main reason I used the NLB. I loved this book.

5. Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kusiisto. Another book I borrowed from the NLB. I loved how much I could relate to Kusiisto’s experienfce, going blind gradually from the same eye condition I suffer from.

6. Aspergirls by Rudy Simone. I had this book as an eBook, but lost it when I moved from Adobe Digital Editions to the iBooks app on my iPhone. I didn’t actually finnish this book, but would love to.

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I read the first book in this series in its Dutch translation at age twelve. Though I really don’t think I’ll ever read the other books, as they get really weird or so I’m told, I’d love to have a copy of this one.

8. All of Astrid Lindgren’s books. I don’t know whether they’re available in English, so I’d go with the Dutch translations.

9. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. I read it in Dutch when I was about thirteen, but I borrowed it from the library back then. I’d love to own a physical copy of both the original Dutch and the English translation.

10. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. This was an intriguing autobiography by a man with Asperger’s. I read it in its Dutch translation before I had access to many English-language books and would love to own a copy of the original English.

Which books would you add to your personal library?

Memoirs and Biographies

Books I’d Add to My Personal Library