The Next Best Book Club discussion

I picked up my copy of Immortality by Milan Kundera over the weekend. I opened it to a random page, and was instantly taken back to where I was some ten years earlier, flying from Atlanta to DC, the last time I read that passage. Everything about the memory was so clear; the book in my lap, the sun through the window with the shade half pulled down, the way the clouds looked from above. I'd love to hear if this happens to other people when you re-read: are you taken back to the place you experienced the book the first time?

Every time I pick up Les Fleurs du Mal I remember sitting in the coffee shop near my very first apartment that over looked the tiniest cemetery I've ever seen. I would read the poems and think about them, looking out the window at the crooked worn down headstones. There were maybe 20 nestled in a little fenced-in area right next a gas station. When I started the book, it was fall and the sun was already taking on that cold light feel.

I have that with songs, but I don't know about books. Also smells, but books? hmmm, would have to think about this more. I don't often re-read. Hmm.

When I re-read The Fellowship of the Ring I am instantly transported to the spacious backseat of my father's 1969 Buick Electra, where I read it for the first time. We were on our way home from Christmas at my grandparents. I can also hear the Beatles' Abbey Road album, as that is what was playing on the car stereo, and I always think some selections from that album fit the book very well, actually.

It's a nice memory.

Woo, what a terrific memory Heather! Makes me want to transport myself back there, sounds perfect.

These are great stories. Mine is sort of reversed: a couple months ago, I flew from Singapore to San Francisco, and read Jessica Z during the flight (I had seen the review in the SF Chronicle so I grabbed a copy for the trip and didn't get to it until the return). At the end of the book, the main character flies to San Francisco herself, and now whenever I fly into SFO, I feel like I'm that character.

I have that with my books because I leave things in it, like train tickets, notes...jsut whatever I had with me in my hand or so. so when i pick up the book and come to what I left in, it all comes back to me!!!

Ohh, Jeane, nice call! I have a copy of The Moor's Last Sigh that I bought in Copenhagen and it has the price sticker in kroner and a SAS boarding pass as a bookmark.

So true. I fly all the time for my work; boarding passes make the best (and very natural!) bookmarks. And are so perfect for jogging a memory (but not as well as a perfect scene from a book).

Ken, that would come in handy... As I love studying and reading..I sometimes which I would have some more of that ability.
I did hate it during exams that I could tell where the answer was in the course: page, where on the page and so on...besides sometimes what was actually written.

Great short-term memory can be developed but they say photographic memory is a "gift."

Always studying or reading (or visiting or writing lately)....Hard to really read anything on the airplane I find. Is that just me...but I always have to bring more than one book along just the same.

Whenever I even think of a certain book, I remember it in detail--time, place, scent, emotion, all of it!

I can do that with a lot of books, but probably not all of them. Two I associate with very good things:

Peace Like a River. I read this when I was visiting my sister at her college 6 hours away for her birthday. I'd had precisely two dates with this guy and I was missing him like crazy.

Year of Wonders. I had just married the aforementioned guy and we were flying back from our honeymoon in Hawaii.

Great discussion idea!

"Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" -- Simone de Beauvoir. I read this in Paris, while staying in an all-girls dormitory (former nurses' housing during the war.) The setting really made the memoir come alive. Re-reading that book brings that time in France back to me in vivid detail. Normal college-girl gossip sounds a lot more sophisticated in French!

I have this pretty decent (and sometimes uncanny) knack of hearing about a certain time or experience in my life and being able to tell you the book I was reading at the time. In some ways this has helped me with my memories as for some reason I have a very "swiss-cheese" way with my memories - family stories of which I have no recollection, etc. If I am able to remember what I was reading at the time I can usually remember the surrounding circumstances. A lot of family trips through my adolescence are recalled that way.

I specifically remember reading The Mothman Prophecies a few years ago when I had to have outpatient surgery. I was reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife when I found out my grandfather died, and I was re-reading Dracula and Bel Canto during my last visit with him the year before. And the first time I went to Europe in 2006 I left The Moviegoer on the train after finishing it.

I've always sort of enjoyed recalling moments based on the book I was reading. It's sort of a comfort.

Anne- wonderful idea for a posting! I love reading everyone's memories!

I remember flying to Palm Springs and reading "Redeeming Love" when I was in eleventh grade. I had my first boyfriend and I was madly in love and infatuated with him! It made Redeeming Love feel real, well as real as can be for a 16 year old! We were about to land and I was at a good part that made me cry buckets of tears! I'm pretty sure I was doing the 'ugly cry' too. Thank goodness it was sunny because I put my sunglasses on ASAP. I made my boyfriend go to the library and check the book out so he could read it too! He was not a reader, but he got it because that is what you do when you are newly in love right?? I'm pretty sure he didn't read it! haha Anyways, that is a strong memory I have of that book. I come from a family of fighting and divorce, and I was just begining to understand a 'relationship' with God. It helped me grasp unconditional love and forgiveness.

Really great topic! Too bad I couldn't come up with much detail.

I just remember the corner of my apartment I squeezed myself in under a low light lamp when I read my favorite book , Assassin's Apprentice for the first time. It was very late, very dark and quiet but I didn't realized how late it was. I just kept reading with my heart racing. It's like my hands glued with the pages and they just turned the pages automatically!

I still remember that moment and long for such wonderful feeling again and again :-)