• Home
  • About Melissa
  • Novels
  • Short Stories
  • Events/News
  • Contact
  • Blog

Melissa Ostrom Author

Melissa Ostrom is the author of The Beloved Wild and other writing

A Labor of Lit Love

April 1, 2021 By Melissa Ostrom

Melissa Ostrom authorMy twelve year old favors my husband’s side, appearance-wise, the long legs, straight back, and Brad-Pitt eyes, but she’s very much her own person. Confronted by one of her unique inclinations, my husband and I will sometimes marvel, “Who’d she get that from?” In one respect, however, she’s all mine: She doesn’t part with stuff, at least not easily. Her messy bedroom pains my husband, the neatest person I know, but she can’t seem to toss, donate, or recycle much of anything. “It’s too special,” she says. (Our ten year old couldn’t be more different. Case in point: He used to tidy his kindergarten teacher’s desk for her during recess. For fun.)

I see my younger self in my packrat kid. Fortunately, over the years, I’ve gotten a little better at giving things up…just not books. With the exception of those borrowed from friends or the library (and eek, sometimes not even then), books that have made their way into this house have taken up permanent residence, resulting in double rows of books on sagging bookshelves, mountains of books in closets, tabletop towers of books, and drawers of books.

But my husband’s orderly instincts must be rubbing off on me because this entire week, I’ve been a woman on a mission, tackling those towers and mountains. I admit, rather than giving the books away, I’m mostly reshelving and organizing them, a feat that’s possible, thanks to our recent purchase of a big bookcase. I am, however, donating the diet books, exercise books, and low-fat, low-carb, and low-calorie cookbooks, as well as the parenting books I never bought for myself, never asked for, and frankly never read, those how-to-get-kids-to-sleep-on-their-own, how-to-wean-your-babies-and-start-them-on-a-perfect-foods-diet, and how-to-handle-the-headstrong-child manuals. For far too long, they occupied my bookcases, like the parenting version of guilt-inducing elves on the shelf. The hardbound scolds and paperback pontificators were the first to get packed up, and that night, after a rich supper followed by a decadent dessert, I slept peacefully beside my husband and dog, with my door left open, in case my kids decided to come sleep with us, too.

The organizing’s been satisfying. I’ve filled my office bookcase with my “magic books,” the novels and collections of essays, poems, short stories, and flashes I revisit regularly because they inspire and move me. Only slightly less special are the books in the rest of the house. In my living room, the poetry anthologies have their own shelf; the story anthologies, too. Books by the same author or poet have found one another at last. My dining room bookcase teems with excellent novels. My tried-and-true cookbooks line the shelves closest to the kitchen. The bookcases in the basement playroom: kid lit heaven!

This has been an emotional undertaking, like wading through picture albums, and slow going. While marshaling my childhood favorites with their cracked spines and ragged covers, the first poetry anthologies I purchased as a teenager, the works I studied in college, the treasured lovelies from trusted friends, the popular “buzz” books I eagerly read, the not-buzzy-at-all tales I discovered by accident, and the many novels, memoirs, and collections by my Twitter lit-community pals, I have paused, again and again, to flip through pages and search for once-admired passages and poems.

Now, side by side on a shelf, sit the novels I wrote, The Beloved Wild and Unleaving, like close siblings among good friends—or, perhaps more aptly, schoolmates among teachers. Plot construction, characterization, dialogue, pacing, diction, style: What little I know about the art of prose and the mysteries of poetry I gleaned from excellent books. I don’t have an MFA, but I have Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ethan Frome, Love Medicine, My Ántonia, Like Water for Chocolate, The Shawl, Pride and Prejudice, The Woman Warrior, Bluets, What Work Is, On the Road, The Shipping News, Wuthering Heights, Housekeeping, The Bluest Eye, Written on the Body, The Master and Margarita, The Lover, Frankenstein, Madness, Rack, and Honey, and many others. These marvels gave me so much pleasure, I hardly noticed them instructing me.

My books bookmark me, the eras of my life. They stir memories, inform my writing, illuminate the trajectory of my interests, hopes, goals, and passions, and remind me of dear others. And I, having spent hours dreaming in their depths, somehow bookmark them, like a pansy pressed between especially fine pages. That’s the neatest thing about reading. We plant ourselves in the stories. And then we grow.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Emily Cebula says

    April 2, 2021 at 10:45 pm

    Melissa, I can’t wait to share these thoughts on what your books mean to you with our Renegade Readers book club group at the library. They will know just what you mean. And what a valuable way to spend a week in early spring, renewing your relationship with your most treasured books!

    • Melissa Ostrom says

      April 3, 2021 at 6:00 am

      Emily! I was so happy to wake up this morning and find this lovely comment from you. Thank you! You’re so kind to want to share my reflections with your excellent book club. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying spring. Miss you!

  2. Rebecca says

    April 13, 2021 at 8:07 am

    “These marvels gave me so much pleasure, I hardly noticed them instructing me.” Oh, this is so wonderful, Melissa. On my to-do list for this week is to organize my office bookshelves, which have a smattering of everything: craft books, novels, lit journals, photo albums, even some wooden Easter eggs! I can’t wait to pore over some of my favorite passages and faces!

    • Melissa Ostrom says

      April 14, 2021 at 5:02 pm

      Aww, thank you so much, Rebecca. I wish you good luck with this endeavor–and joy revisiting those old favorites! xoxo

Recent Posts

  • Dead Flowers
  • The Secret Story
  • Love Your Darlings
  • Song dogs
  • A Sense of Snug

Recent Comments

  • Melissa Ostrom on Dead Flowers
  • John Franklin Browning on Dead Flowers
  • Melissa Ostrom on The Secret Story
  • Caterina Alvarez on The Secret Story
  • Melissa Ostrom on The Secret Story

Archives

  • March 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017