Missing

A recent blog post on Paris Review reminded me that my Keeper Shelf is missing some books that I’d like to reread.

Cooking with Sigrid Undset, by Valerie Stivens, discusses themes and foods in Kristin Lavransdatter, by Norwegian author, Sigrid Undset. Years ago (decades actually) I read this historical fiction book in the few snatches of time I had during my work day. Kristin Lavransdatter and the other two books in the trilogy tell the story of a medieval Norwegian woman. Undset won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this work.

Which makes me laugh at a particular memory involving this book. While reading on a break at work, a coworker asked me sarcastically if I was reading a bodice ripper. (That edition had a different cover.) I actually had never read any true romances then–no Kathryn Woodiwiss, no Harlequin or Signet books. I looked at the cover and said, “Well maybe, but it did win the Nobel Prize for Literature.” Hah. The joke was on him.

My Sigrid Undset books somehow shuffled off during one of our moves in the intervening years. Too bad, because after reading Stivens’ piece in the Paris Review, I’d like to read Kristin again.

Loaned and Not Returned

Also missing is another historical fiction trilogy about a medieval woman, A Vision of Light, Book 1 in the Margaret of Ashbury Trilogy by Judith Merkle Riley. I loaned all three of these books to another author several years ago with the specific statement that I wanted them back. Silly me.

And I do miss them. Riley’s characters are brilliant, and the medieval history is fascinating. I still have her three novels set in sixteenth and seventeenth century France. I think I need to reread those!

Lessons Learned

1. Buy more moving boxes.
2. Never loan a book from your Keeper Shelf

Are there books missing from your Keeper Shelf that you’d like to reread? What were they, and how did they vanish?