Memory Books

Most of us can remember where we were when certain events happened: when we got asked to prom (in my high school auditorium), when found out we got into our dream school or got our dream job (standing in my living room), when September 11, 2001 happened (in Mr. Brandt's English class), etc.

I have book-related memories as well. There are some books, places, and times that will forever be associated in my mind.

I remember reading Hunger Games in 2010 while on a family vacation. I was reading while standing in line for security, weaving back and forth through the ropes, and hating every second it took for the book to go through the x-ray machine in my carry on.

Room by Emma Donoghue was another 2010 read that I could. Not. Put. Down. I was in my bed in Michigan, awake way too late because I had to know what was going to happen before I went to sleep.

Though I tend to read a lot of books before bed, I specifically remember reading TFIOS in the bedroom of my old apartment. Those memories mostly consist of crying so hard I couldn't breathe, and falling back against my pillows like I'd been punched in the gut. Naturally.

Going way back, I remember reading The Notebook in my college dorm room. I even remember the way my roommate and I had arranged our furniture at the time.

It's strange how I can think about some books I've read, some even as recently as 2015, and I can't remember anything about where or when I read them, but for others the details are so clear. It seems like the more invested I am in the characters and the story, the more it leaps off the page, the more I remember it and my life outside of it.

As a reader, I want more of these memory books, and as a writer, I want to produce them.

What are YOUR memory books? Where and when did you read them?