For Keeps

I have a sweater.  A black turtleneck, nothing special about it except that it has been washed so many times that the synthetic is as smooth as silk.  The sweater is old but it’s like a chameleon.  It fits everywhere for every occasion, under a business suit, over jeans.  Comfortable enough for long days of travel and great for lounging around in.  It’s a keeper. 

The topic of keepers has come up quite a bit this week.  First with a contest I’m holding where part of the prize package will be a few books I think of as keepers. And the term keeper came up again with Michelle Moran's "Cleopatra's Daughter" who I featured this week on my blog.  And that made me think, what makes a keeper?

Well in clothes we know it's comfort and versatility and maybe something more.  Maybe it's a memory the piece might be attached to or maybe it's survived through the majority of your adulthood and there's a certain loyalty in that.  Can one feel loyalty to clothes? 

And what about books? I love to read but truly the majority of books don’t make the keeper shelves.  I might keep them but I may never recommend them or take them out for that second read. So what makes a keeper?

The first thing about a keeper is that they stand out from the pack.  There’s something unique about every one of them.  And often there's something to be learned, a lesson to be taken away.  Many  of them cut to the heart of an emotion or force us to look clearly at issues.  They take the reader so deeply into the pages of the story that there's no doubt that this is real.  We taste, smell and feel the characters' emotions and can't help but cheer for them. There's something about the story that imprints itself so that you find yourself thinking about it long after you finish that last page.  It's the book whose end is met with that feeling of regret and the wish that you had read slower and savoured each word.  There's magic to a keeper and that's not easy to pinpoint or define.

So back to my original point - what makes a keeper?  Could it be as simple as they touch a nerve?

What books do you consider keepers?  

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
Ring of Desire
From the Dust

The contest for Michelle Moran’s, "Cleopatra's Daughter" is still running. Commenting here or anywhere on my blog counts as an entry. Post often through January 17 to up your chances to win. 
But to make things easier for me, if you’re responding to an older post, please enter the title.
Good Luck!