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Three years of reading blogs seems to have changed the way I relate to books, especially autobiographies. I've been riveted this week by a book called We Took To the Woods. It was written over 50 years ago by Louise Dickinson Rich. It's a smart, funny and conversational read, the story of a woman who, with her husband and children, simply packed up and headed to the remotest corner of rural of Maine in the 1930's. And as she shares her story in such a chatty and warm way, I've found myself wishing I could click on the proper link to leave her a comment. I want to tell her how much her story has affected me, as a woman and a mother.
And I can't help but think how funny her Tweets would have been. It's a shame, really, that she was writing in a day when most computers were larger than my house.
These semi-irrational thoughts have had me thinking this week about my favorite authors, especially those who lived before the days of blogging. Aren't there some writers whose blogs you would've loved to have read? And conversely, don't you find that many of your favorite bloggers remind you of your favorite book authors?
Dickinson Rich's tone and story have been reminding me of Confessions Of a Pioneer Woman or Amy's Humble Musings:
We plan to lime and sow a cover crop as soon as we get there this August, so things will be ready in the spring. I’m driving my husband crazy. I see berries and daffodils in my dreams and all he sees is PVC pipe and an aching back.
I think of Erma Bombeck, the patron saint of mommy-bloggers, one of the first and the finest to record for a mass audience the hilarity that arises out of the simplest acts of motherhood:
My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.
It sounds like something I would've heard from any number of my favorite mom-bloggers, like Big Mama or FiddleDeeDee:
This stroller in question has seen better days. He ripped the canopy off months ago in disgust when he kept banging his head on it. He is tall enough to put his feet either on the wheels or the floor, forcing the entire contraption to come to a full and complete halt. Whether I want to or not.
A clue he may have outgrown the stroller.
Or what about Garrison Keillor, that master of the vignette and the writer of spot-on character sketches, a lot of like Boo Mama or Antique Mommy:
And then someone will say, “Poor Fanny went to her grave wanting to hit Millie and never got the chance.” And then we all hang our heads in a moment of silence for Aunt Fanny and her unrequited and unopened can of whoop ass.
My favorite mom-blogger-before-mom-bloggers-existed was Prudence Mackintosh, author of the early 1970's book Thundering Sneakers:
Back in 1970 I was terribly avant-garde with Lamaze breathing and panting and my husband's presence in the delivery room. I know that's all very standard now when I overhear people discuss things like Kegel exercises, cervix, and episiotomy in mixed company who five years ago wouldn't have said Midol without blushing.
Her side-splitting essays about mothering boys were what first made me want to dabble in writing about my own motherhood journey. It's the same kind of rip-roaring parenting chronicle I find in The Country Doctor's Wife:
Today I took my kids to the pool, and yes, I spent the first ten minutes frantically scanning the water for turds while feeling kind of sick and dizzy... but then I got over it.
As I've thought about these authors these week--authors of the book and blog variety--I've realized that many of my Bloglines subscriptions are beginning to mean as much to me as my favorite volumes on the shelf.
What about you? What book authors inspired the way you blog? And what authors do you wish could still be around to blog?
Shannon Lowe is a BlogHer contributing editor (Mommy/Family), and she writes at Rocks In My Dryer.
