seanan_mcguire @ 2009-02-09T12:20:00

2009-02-09T20:21:01Z

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.

Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

seanan_mcguire @ 2009-02-09T12:20:00