I’ve always loved physical books. I like gazing at my bookshelf, browsing bookstores (especially library book sales and independents), and I love visiting my local library and feeling that anticipation as I head to the stacks. Of course, most of my reading does happen in the virtual space, and I am a library fan. But it’s like a warm hug to gaze at books I’ve had for years; some have even been inherited from family members.
The book JENNIE by Paul Gallico is one of my most beloved books. (It’s now part of the public domain.) It’s the story of a boy, Peter, who has an accident and is then transformed into a cat. He has to learn how to be a cat and fend for himself. (The book’s US title was “The Abandoned.” I don’t like it. The Jennie in the title refers to a stray cat who takes the Peter-boy-turned-cat under her paw. She’s a central character.) (Paul Gallico wrote The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure.)
When I’m at my computer writing, I can glance over my left shoulder and see the book, shelved at eye level in the middle shelf. I don’t have a book system. Nothing is shelved in alphabetical order. Sometimes, I do group books into different subjects but not always.
The book has long since lost its jacket cover, and the binding is old, but worn. The book was first published in 1950; mine is the 19th impression June 1958. I remember receiving the book from my paternal grandmother, a flamboyant, eccentric woman who toiled away at her typewriter, working on her manuscripts. (She never did publish.) The book was not new when I received it. And now, when I open it to the back cover, the owner’s name, which is written in cursive, gives me an important clue. “P VanRensburg” was the married name of my grandmother’s sister, a nurse who died from cancer sometime in the 1970’s (I think.)
This book means so much to me. It’s more than a story, words on the page but a link to memories and family members long since gone.
