Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: amused
  • Music: Michael Jackson, 'Thriller.'

Box of creepy. The good kind.

My favorite book in the entire world -- the comforting, reassuring book that I return to over and over again, because it makes everything better for as long as I'm reading it -- is IT, by Stephen King. This probably explains a lot about me. I've read IT at least once a year since I was nine, more frequently two or three times a year, because when I'm stressed, I want familiar things around me, and my definition of 'familiar things' includes scary evil clowns. (My grandmother had a clown collection. I lived with her for a while, and it's a miracle I never took a hammer to her curio shelves. When she passed away, all the clowns went into boxes, and I never saw them again. I do not miss them, although I sort of wish I knew where they were, so as to remove 'under my bed with knives' from the available options.)

Because I re-read this book so frequently, I've actually managed to imprint on a specific edition, like a baby duck imprinting on a fire-breathing hellhound as its mother. I must have the 1985 paperback edition, or the words are in the wrong places on the page, and the book feels wrong to me. Yes, I recognize how absolutely bizarre this is. It doesn't change the fact that they re-paginated in later editions, and things just don't look right.

It's been getting increasingly hard to find copies of IT in my preferred edition, maybe because it's a twenty-four year old paperback that wasn't all that well-bound to begin with. I've been hoarding them with increasing desperation, knowing that the well is getting closer and closer to running dry. I had fourteen copies, at last count, after giving one to Vixy for Christmas. Well, I found a cardboard box on my porch this week, sent from Merav in New York. She's pretty good about telling me when things are perishable, so I let it sit for a few days before opening it.

When I did open it, I laughed myself dizzy. Because inside were seven -- yes, seven -- copies of the correct edition of IT, all neatly stacked and waiting to join the pile. Between her and Joey (who did something similar at my 'hooray, we've sold the first three Toby books' party), I may finally have sufficient copies of IT to get me through my lifetime.

My friends are very strange.
Tags: good things, reading things, so the marilyn, stephen king, vixy
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  • 14 comments

herefox

February 9 2009, 21:14:36 UTC 8 years ago

My grandmother made these little clown dolls for all us grandchildren when I was a kid. It looked exactly like the clown from poltergeist and lived on a shelf above my bed most of my growing up years. There were many nights where I woke up from a noise and was sure demon clown was going to strangle me.

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:28:11 UTC 8 years ago

...and then they wonder why we turn out weird. Sheesh.

coyotegoth

February 9 2009, 21:33:17 UTC 8 years ago

I used to work at a circus; I used to reread It every year at Christmastime. I *hope* that the two are not related.

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:28:26 UTC 8 years ago

But if they are, you clearly wanted the clowns to suffer.

mariadkins

February 9 2009, 22:18:51 UTC 8 years ago

You sound like me and my hoarding of Rosamunde Pilcher's "The Shell Seekers". However, right now I have only three copies because I keep giving them to people, pressing them into their hands and crying, "You must read this!" I need to go to Half Price...

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:28:54 UTC 8 years ago

Oh, there are several books I hoard for one reason or another. IT is just the one I mostly hoard only for myself.

ladymondegreen

February 9 2009, 23:55:58 UTC 8 years ago

Yay!

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:29:04 UTC 8 years ago

SO MANY BOOKS.

hoppytoad79

February 10 2009, 00:18:19 UTC 8 years ago

Strange friends like that are most cool

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:29:26 UTC 8 years ago

Most of my friends are strange ones. I'm lucky that way.

nyxalinth

February 10 2009, 03:23:43 UTC 8 years ago

I love IT! one of my favorites.

For ages, I could not get into Insomnia. not even a little. Now it's almost to me what IT is for you. I suppose I take comfort in the idea of even when rotten, random things happen even they serve a higher purpose.

seanan_mcguire

February 10 2009, 03:29:56 UTC 8 years ago

I was much the same -- at least until I realized how IT, Insomnia, and Dreamcatcher all connected. Then I was sold for life.

onefishonly

February 10 2009, 05:55:19 UTC 8 years ago

I enjoyed this post a lot, not least because IT is one of my very favorites as well. (When Stephen King signed and personalized my beat-up paperback, I was smiling for days afterward.) I'd managed to pick up another paperback along the way, since I clearly wasn't going to reread the signed one any more and risk it falling apart, but I was recently extremely happy to find a hardcover copy of IT lying around the office. Now I have a fighting chance for a durable copy of IT, even if I don't have twenty backups.

seanan_mcguire

February 14 2009, 02:23:25 UTC 8 years ago

You have no idea how much I envy you having a personalized paperback of this book. Because truly, it is my security blanket against all ills of this world.