What makes a book a keeper?
We all have them.
The Keepers.
The books we will read again and again, the ones we guard with our lives, will never lend out and the ones we want to take to the grave with us.
But how to define a keeper?
What makes a book a keeper?
Is it the story? The characters? The writing style?
Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them.
Personally, I fall in love with heroes. I’m sure most of us do. Sometimes I love the spunky heroine. Sometimes the storyline is one that grabs me and doesn’t let go.
It’s personal taste.
I have unlikely keepers, too.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg, is one of my keepers.
So is my collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe.
Pest Control, by Bill Fitzhugh, is one of those unlikely keepers. I absolutely adore that book, because it makes me laugh out loud.
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, is one I can read over and over.
However, my romance keepers… change.
They change, because I evolve, just like the genre evolves.
I used to gobble up anything by Johanna Lindsay, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Jude Deveraux. I swore they were all keepers.
My entire collection is boxed up and in the loft. I haven’t read one in years.
Actually, that’s not true.
I tried to read one. I got as far as a quarter of the book and put it down, wondering how I could ever have deemed it a keeper. The writing seemed stale. The storyline unbelievable and contrived. The heroine… let’s not go there. The hero was an overbearing rapist.
We change. Our tastes change.
Unfortunately, most of our keepers don’t stand the test of time and can’t cope with the change. (Some do, though.)
I remember Shanna (Kathleen E. Woodiwiss) with absolute fondness, because it was the first romance I read. I’ve never read the English version. (I read it in German.)
I have other Woodiwiss books in English, and I even peeked into one recently. I put it away, because… well… the writing was just… horrible. The language, the style… God. I just couldn’t bear it.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love those books. I have fond memories of the characters and the story. I just don’t want to read it again, because it would taint that memory.
I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way.
So what are the keepers you can’t bear to read again, but won’t let go of anyway?
Do you keep them out, or do you box them up?
Do you try to read them again?
Do you get put off, because the style that seemed so great when you first read it, is just not what you would read now?
I know I do.
And I keep the books anyway, would never part with them.
To me, they are like old friends you haven’t seen in a long time. But now you can see all their irritating habits, and prefer to know them from a distance. 
