12, 16, 36, 39 <3
12: Tell one book story or memory (what you were wearing when you were reading something, someone saw you cry in public, you threw a book across the room and broke a window, etc.)
the circumstances i found what later became my favorite book of many many years (this one), were so intriguing and mystic to me i always recall that story with the strangest sense of doom and fascination ever. it was late afternoon, it was raining like hell, i was more or less eleven or twelve and i was one of those children obsessed with lit, who used to go downtown just to casually wander in half empty libraries or bookshops. whenever anyone asked me what kind of gifts to buy me, i always used to say “a book” - so my mom (who was really a special mom about encouraging this passion of mine) just resolved opening me like an endless credit paper at my favorite bookshop. i was the only child ever having kind of a book, paper-ish credit card before even being of age. i just had to go to the shop and write the titles of the books i wanted on that and sign it and the gentleman there would give me every book i wanted. as simple as that. my mom used to visit the shop once a month to pay for what i bought. i was literally in love with that place (i still am, even if just in my memory now), not only because of that, but because it was a tiny, dusty, kinda ancient-like little library. i didn’t understand half of the titles i read among those shelves and yet this very thing used to give me a strange shiver of pleasure. i always had the sensation i was standing among the beating heart of the world or something, on the verge of discovering great wonders in store just for me. yet tiny, that bookshop was a shadowy labyrinth i’ll miss forever - they closed it a few months ago. and with that they closed half of my childhood as well. i didn’t love it just because of the books, but i grew to adore even the company of the owner (a witty old man that every time i gave him a book i wanted to buy, never game me the bill before having told me all his philosophical impressions about it, with the aim of a writer in disguise or something), not to mention an habituè of that very shop, who used to spend the afternoons sitting on a large armchair among the books, usually reading a black and white, crumpled newspaper, was my mom’s beloved university literature professor, who was basically the italian version of julian from the secret history. whenever i picked a book that was “too much for a child”, like the iliad or some philosophy essay, he would glance my way from under his newspaper, and with a deep sigh (even if i could swear he enjoyed those times really much), would explain to me what it was all about - messing things up in my mind even more lmao because he talked like a pretentious academic and i was too young to appreciate that, honestly.anyways, that afternoon i was alone in the shop and i had nothing to read, because i’d just finished the latest harry potter, so i was looking for something to ease my pain with in the meantime, until the next one would have come out. i walked for more than an hour among those shelves, without finding anything interesting (i have to say i used to pick books much more severely as a child, now i give everything that intrigues me a try, but back then i absolutely didn’t, i used to pick my books as accurately as a soulmate or something). i was about to leave sad as hell, when i noticed in a hidden, dark corner of the shop, a black, dusty half broken open-wardrobe/library under a scarlet curtain. i did have noticed the curtain many times before, but i’d genuinely thought the all time behind it there was a private area, some storage closet or something. i approached that hidden corner very solemnly and intrigued as hell and i started checking the books’ titles. all fantasy novel or esotericism. and still, nothing interesting again.i was about to go away, when i saw something hanging in the most precarious of balances under the other books of the middle shelf of the library, between the black wood and the wall. i struggled a lot to let it out without damaging it in any way, but when i succeeded, i felt like i had to buy that book, the legends. not only because i figured it talked about dragons (i’ve always liked dragons), but because of the strange way i found it in the first place as well. i felt like i was doomed to that book or something. and it actually became my favorite book of all my childhood and honestly it is still one of my ever favorites. and that’s it.
16: Rant about anything book related
already answered: “WHY ON EARTH DOESN’T THE GOLDFINCH OWN A PROPER RAGING LOUD FANDOM AND LOTS AND LOTS OF EDITS AND INSPIRED POETRY AND MEMES AND ALL LIKE TSH HAS MY GOD I SWEAR I WILL DO IT ALL MYSELF IF I HAVE TO THE GOLDFINCH DESERVES THIS AND MUCH MORE OK”
36: Unpopular opinions
honestly tsh is not that great masterpiece everyone is so in love with, imo. it’s good, but not that good. it’s one of the best books to talk about, to make fun of and that owns the aesthetic TM. but that’s it. the goldfinch? a thousand times better.
39: Favorite villain
lots, but since this ask is kinda dedicated to the drangolance series, raistlin majere.
BOOKISH-ASKS