“I am looking for a book.
I don’t remember the title or the author and I think it had a woman who
lived in a big house somewhere in Europe.
I do remember that it had a blue cover.
Can you help me find a copy?”
Believe it or not, this is a common conversation in libraries and
bookstores. Readers are often searching
for a well-loved tale from their childhood or some compelling novel that they
read several years ago. Titles and
authors fade from memory and plot lines are often fuzzy but an astounding
number of these literary treasure seekers report with absolute conviction that
the cover was blue – not red, white, yellow or turquoise – BLUE! Unfortunately, this piece of information is
not always very useful as there happen to be any number of books with blue
covers, both in print and long since retired.
If the reader can be coaxed into remembering an unusual plot point or
character detail, for example: “She always wore purple galoshes and she was
searching for a letter from an undertaker about her uncle who was buried with
his pet monkey…”, the fact that the cover was blue might actually be helpful as an added piece of the identification puzzle. However, it
is more often the case that the book is found despite the remembered hue of the
cover. “It was a fairytale about a girl
who was kidnapped and was pulled underground and eaten by vegetables that
looked like people. I am pretty sure
that the cover was blue.” When this
description was used to unearth “The Vege-Men’s Revenge”, by Florence Upton (out
of print for many years), by sheer luck, the librarian assisting the reader had personal knowledge
of the story and came up with the title. The reader was thrilled to be directed to an online resource for
accessing the book. Unfortunately, she was
quite disappointed to discover that the cover was not blue.
“They must have changed the cover when they put this book online. I much preferred the blue one.”
In celebration of blue reads, I offer up the following
titles for your memory and future literary quests:
1 comment:
I always act so irritated when that's all someone can remember. And then I find myself in the same situation--able to describe the cover down to last detail and unable to remember the title. Quite humbling.
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