I have been attempting to be more active in the book blogging community lately, but I’m pretty bad at talking to people (I get nervous lol) so I thought I’d do something fun, like make my own little book tag. Hence the Shelf-History Tag!

❀ This tag is for those books that came to you in an unusual, interesting, funny, or sweet way. Pick 5 (or more if you want) books from your shelf and tell us the story of how you came to own that book. If you’re a public library user and don’t really own any books, you can still participate. Just tell us the most interesting/funny/sweet ways you came to find a particular library book.

Tag your posts with #ShelfHistory so I can see them all!

When you’re finished, tag 5 (or more) readers whose Shelf-History you’d like to know about! This one can easily be done on any blogging/vlogging platform so feel free to tag cross-platform if you really want to. ❀

I’ll go first as an example and also just because I want to play too:

Book 1: Jane Austen: Seven Novels + Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I received these two as a gift from the pastor’s secretary at the church I used to work at (but before I worked there). They are both beautiful volumes, but especially the gilded Seven Novels collection. I was in high school, so this was about 10 years ago) and had never read Jane Austen before and Ms. Judy highly recommended them. I wasn’t sold so she went out and bought them for me and asked only that I give them a chance. They have sweet little inscriptions in them and I will definitely cherish these for a long, long time.

Book 2: The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

My copy of The Goose Girl was purchased from the Scholastic Book Fair back in middle school. I bought it because the cover was beautiful and the title was interesting. (And because I always bought tons of books from the book fair lol) I took it home and read it right away and it totally swept me up. It was my first fairytale retelling novel and I was totally hooked. At the time I wasn’t reading very much, I was really struggling with everything, and this book got me into reading again. The Goose Girl will always have a special place in my heart, and I hope I can hold on to this particular copy until it falls apart and then some.

Book 3: A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

Did you ever own a book that you had no idea how you got it or why you have it? One day I was rearranging my books and I found one that I didn’t remember reading (this was back when I had a lot less books). I read the back and it didn’t ring any bells at all. Despite this, it was clearly my book, since it was on my shelves. Over the years I have unhauled it at least twice, and yet somehow it always winds up back on my shelf. That’s not me being cute. I mean I literally don’t know how it winds up back on the shelf. I put it in the box of books to get rid of and it just doesn’t get rid. I guess I figure I’m supposed to own this book…

Book 4: The Tenth Power by Kate Constable

This is my only Advanced Reader Copy. Oh lucky me, I got an ARC, right? Wrong. I ordered the hardcover version of this book online and received the ARC anyway. It wasn’t a huge deal, but it bothered me slightly because hardbacks are expensive and because it didn’t match the others from the series that I had. So I wrote to the seller and they offered to send me the copy I actually ordered and I could do with the ARC whatever I wished. Well lo, and behold, two weeks later, here comes a book in the mail. But is it the hardback copy that I ordered? No, bitch, it’s ANOTHER ARC copy! At this point I just gave up. It was both too funny and too dumb to care about any longer.

Book 5: It Happened This Way

I don’t know where or how I got this book, but I’ve had it since I was about 2 years old. The thing that makes this book truly special to me is that it’s the book my mom used to teach me to read. The best I can figure, she found it at a garage sale or got it from one of the classrooms she used to interpret in before I was born. I don’t know how I’ve managed to hold on to it all these years, but I still look through it every so often and love it so much. My favorite story in it is the story of Mark Park (who the kids called Mark Park Walk in the Dark). It will probably always make me smile.

Alrighty those are my Shelf History picks. Not the most interesting stories, but I’m betting that some of y’all have some really fascinating ones!

I’m tagging: Purple Manatees, Lauren @ Northern Plunder, Amanda @ Between the Shelves, Sionna @ Books in her Eyes, & Words in the Rain. But feel free to do it even if you aren’t tagged!