Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I’m Thankful for Books

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics

• 5th September: Books That Defied My Expectations
• 12th September: Books Awaiting Reviews
• 19th September: Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List
• 26th September: Secondary/Minor Characters Who Deserve Their Own Book
• 3rd October: Reading Goals I Still Want to Accomplish Before the End of the Year
• 17th October: Books with Weather Events in the Title/on the Cover
• 24th October: Atmospheric Books
• 31st October: Hallowe’en Freebie – Books featuring spooky hares
• 7th November: Book Titles That Would Make Great Newspaper Headlines

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This is a lovely sweet topic – a nod towards Thanksgiving in the USA – and pretty useful considering I am in the midst of Ofsted inspection at work. Day one is done; day two still to go!

So, as I assume that we all are readers – I mean, who else would be attracted to a blog entitled The Book Lover’s Sanctuary? – we are all grateful for books in our lives… but can I enunciate why?

I Am Grateful for the…

Simple Escapism of Books

Even my privileged and middle class life has its ups and downs… and the chance to escape from those little stresses into a world of magic or of thrills, of action or of romance is a pure delight. To escape into the fantasy worlds of Middle Earth, Roshar, Orisha or the Hundred Acres Wood is a joy.

Representation: to see myself and my loved ones

Representation is so important – whether it be in terms of gender or sexuality, disability or neurodivergence, or simply of age. I am so grateful that me, my ASC daughter, the children I teach can now find novels and texts that show their stories – our stories. That show us that we have stories worth telling.

The Chance to Explore

Whether it be the villages or teeming cities of India, the wilderness of the Antarctic, the jungles and villages of Nigeria, books have allowed me to see and experience worlds that (at the moment) I would have no chance to see in real life.

Similarly, without a time machine, how else could I visit the fog-bound streets of Victorian London, the Enclosure of rural communities, Tudor England, the harsh brutality of life in neolithic times?

The Chance to Experience the Thrill of Danger

We love danger, threat, conflict, risk don’t we, within the safety of a book whose covers you can close when you need to. The Gothic is one of my favourite genres and I adore that challenge to the smug complacency that some people look at our world with – there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophies…

The Joy and Playfulness of Many Writers’ Use of Language

Dickens always springs to mind when I consider the wonderful joy of language that we see in novels: his exuberance that overflows into increasingly developed and occasionally convoluted similes and metaphors. By no means is he the only writer who does this, but for me he encapsulates it. I mean, just look at the opening line of the suitably seasonal A Christmas Carol: “Marley was dead; to begin with”…

Emotional Support

My daughter – the one with ASC – has a number of fidget toys, soft toys and to some extent pets that she uses as emotional support and she looked at me one day and asked, “Is your Kindle an emotional support Kindle?” And that is now what we use to refer to it!

Because, yes, books – electronic, audio or traditional – offer an emotional support simply by having them with me, even if the chance of reading it are slim to nil! And after a long, hard, challenging day (week or month), what is better than slipping into a bookshop and just being around books?

Books Change the Way You See the World Around You

There are so many books that have changed the way I look at the world… In Ascension by Martin MacInnes – longlisted for the Booker Prize – is one! Richard Powers…

Books Live With You; They Can be Friends Forever

There are phrases and images, ideas and sentences that have remained with me since almost the earliest childhood – and even now at the age of 50 I can remember Stig of the Dump reminding us that wood heats you twice, once when you are cutting it and once when you burn it… I remember Danny Champion of the World spiking raisins to poach pheasants…

The Characters In Books Can Be Your Best Friends

Heroes and villains, underdogs, sidekicks, detectives and criminals, magicians and rogues… books are populated by such a range of characters that some cannot fail to strike you as a new friend… Can you fall in love with fictional characters? Absolutely.

Books Have Opened Up Real-World Friendships

Am I the sort of person who likes small talk? No. I find that sort of phatic exchange exhaustingly empty. Please just let me ask what book you’re reading at the moment! Let me browse your bookshelves, let me see the dog-eared half-finished books on your bedside table… Not to mention the friendships and conversations that this online community has generated!

Books Are Easy and Meaningful Gifts

With Christmas coming, of course we are looking for gifts that will be appreciated. And there is something so personal and intimate about putting yourself in the mind of someone else and inhabiting them enough to choose a book for them.

The Joy of Completionism

I am a completionist… it takes a lot to put me off a series I have begun. J. K. Rowling – Robert Galbraith – is trying it very hard to make me abandon her pube-headed detective and his creosote coloured tea…

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Upcoming Top Ten Tuesday Themes

November 21: Reasons Why I’m Thankful for Books (In honor of Thanksgiving in the USA.)
November 28: Books Set In X (Pick a setting and share books that are all set there. This could be a specific continent or country, a state, in outer space, underwater, on a ship or boat, at the beach, etc.)
December 5: Freebie
December 12: Books On My Winter 2022-2023 To-Read List
December 19: Books.I Hop Santa Brings/Bookish Wishes
December 26: The Ten Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf (Maybe share your holiday book haul?)