To Choose a Favourite Book

A Favourite Book or Movie - this month's assigned topic for Writer's Ink.

Books transport us to other lands and times, other planets or dimensions in space. Our lives are enriched by stories of families or survival in isolation. We feel tension, sadness, or joy. We laugh and cry as stories lead us by the hand through the complexities of narratives. To choose my favourite book, or movie, has not been possible and most definitely, a challenge to even attempt to do so. Titles, stories and characters each presented themselves to me. Some shyly, some quite boldly and some just because they had a nice book jacket. All We Hold Dear by Kathryn Lyn Davis was the first title that came to mind, then quietly stood by as I opened my mind’s bookshelves to find just the right book.“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, both storybook and movie, characters and setting moved me, stepped up and then stood quietly beside “All We Hold Dear”. To name all the others and their authors has been far too expansive for this short essay. All We Hold Dear touched my heart in a way that no other book has before or since. It is the story of how a young girl learns of her family history going back three generations in the Highlands of Scotland. In the Romance genre, I found it to be much more. To me it has been a story not just of love of family, but of letting go of loved ones that pass from this life. When I first read it, I was lead gently into a world of generational bonds and love. At the time, I was living apart from my own family in Texas. To read this tender story at such a time has held me close ever since.

All We Hold Dear by Kathryn Lyn Davis opens on Eva’s 18^th birthday in 1988. Eva finds a journal written by one of her ancestors, and the novel proceeds from there into the highlands of Scotland. All We Hold Dear is the second in the trilogy Too Deep for Tears. Did not know that until today! The other two books are: First is the novel Too Deep for Tears; the third book is Somewhere Lies the Moon. I guess I have two more books to read.

“So many books, so little time.”

~  Frank Zappa