Books to Bury Me With: Courtenay Schembri Gray

The book I’d want to take with me to the grave:

The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath.

 

The first book that hit me like a ton of bricks:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

 

The book that’s seen more of my tears, coffee stains, and cigarette burns:

I’m going to go with Plath’s poems again. That woman and I are connected on a spiritual level.

 

The book that shook my world like a goddamn hurricane:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The book I wish I’d discovered when my liver was still intact:

I hope my liver is still intact, but… Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille.

 

The book I’d shove into everyone’s hands if I were king of the world:

Other than Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad, the collected works of Shakespeare shapes our world.

 

The book that nearly drove me to madness:

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. It was our set text for GCSE, and if I never have to see that book again, I will be immensely happy.

 

The book I can’t keep my hands off of, no matter how many times I’ve read it:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. If it’s not her poems, it’s her novel. 

 

The book I’d hide in the back of my closet, pretending I’m too highbrow for it:

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. She almost seems too twee, but I have a marginal interest. 

 

The book that left a scar I wish I could forget:

I don’t get scarred by books; I am healed.

 

The author who made me think, "Now that’s a soul in torment":

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories by Tim Burton. I found it when I was seven years old, and up until then, I hadn’t found anyone who loves the macabre like I do.

 

The book I’d get a tattoo of if I had the nerve:

From Plath’s poem Years in her collected works, she wrote: “In your vacuous black / Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.” I am drawn to colourful stars, but once / if they darken, I escape with my light intact."

 

The book that made me question everything I thought I knew:

Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. What a phenomenal book!

 

The book that’s so damn good I’d never loan it out:

My copies of Sylvia Plath are very precious to me—including my first edition of Johnny Panic & the Bible of Dreams. 

 

The book that’s been my companion through the darkest nights:

I have fallen asleep to the sweet crooning of Jeremy Irons narrating Nabakov’s Lolita. 

 

The book I’d throw in someone’s face during a heated argument:

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. God forbid the magic transfers, quelling the bulbous tension. 

 

The book that reminds me of a lost love or regret:

Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle. 

 

The book I wish I could have written, but know I never could:

I don’t wish for that.

 

The book that makes me want to drink myself into oblivion:

Can you read Dubliners by James Joyce without a drink? 

 

The book that’s been my refuge from the world’s cruelty:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: the perfect morality test, wrapped up in star-paper.