Oh, I loved The Dark Is Rising series, but I think it's becauseI read it as a kid, and it (and other books) are the reason I have such an interest in Celtic mythology and Arthurian legends.

I can't read it objectively; it's always a nostalgia read.

You know, I don't remember a huge amount of my childood and teen years vividly, so much to the extent that I have occasionaly wondered about memory repression/alien abduction/Satanic cult abuse (kidding! kinda!) but I think it's because I spent so much of my childhood out of body, in some other reality brought to me by books.

You, too, Erin? Not on the Dark Is Rising stuff, but on the lack of childhood memory.

I'm almost done with Storm Front. Harry Dresden is made of win.

P-C, now you need to read Anasi Boys! I do love American Gods, though. I will re-read right before (or, perhaps on) my Great American Road Trip that I swear will really truly happen someday.

You, too, Erin? Not on the Dark Is Rising stuff, but on the lack of childhood memory.

Same here. I mean, I have very clear memories of some stuff from childhood, but a lot of it is a haze of books I dove into.

P-C, now you need to read Anasi Boys!

Yep! I shoved another book ahead of it in the queue, but it's getting read soon.

In fact, trauma’s never overcome. That’s what defines it.

So PTSD does exist, but it can't be cured?

If Jane Austen wrote Star Trek

Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Like, my mom and dad got REMARRIED (to each other) when I was 12 after being divorced for 2 years...and I remember NOTHING of it. Nothing.

That's the nonmemory that weirds me out the most. I know my mom wore a red suit to the service, but that's because it hung in her closet.

I remember about a total of 4 hours of that whole fricking year: the shuttle explosion, finding the box set of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series in the TAG room, being chastised by the TAG teacher for reading an inappropriate Trivial Pursuit question aloud (hey, I didn't KNOW what a prophylactic was) and reading Morgan Llewellen's book Epona in the toilet stall during lunch hour. It had a gold foil cover, and I could peel the gold foil off. Also, horses and Cerunnos sex. Rigatona said "He took me DRY" and shuddered.

...that's it. 7th grade. What I remember of a WHOLE YEAR.

Now I really kinda want to find a copy of that book and read it. It's been years since I thought of it.

To which I give the Cry of the Internet: "Oh my God, I thought it was just me!"

I've got about that much of everything up to 4th grade. Like, put together.

Embarrassment, irritatingly enough, ups the memorability.

I don't know how people with poor memories of their childhood function.

I can recall specific days and details at will.

You need that stuff!

I remember living on the farm, to about age 9, with good clarity. It's 9 to about 15 that were utterly, utterly miserable for me, and best lived within the covers of books.

Middle school was so awful that I truly remember almost none of it. My refuge was the school library, and I spent EVERY SINGLE lunch period for two years locked in a toilet stall, reading.

High school is more clear, and things are much, much clearer after the day I finally told off a popular boy who was tormenting me (a la 5th grade to 11th grade) -- he grabbed his crotch and told me to eat him in front of all of his friends, and I said, "I don't eat rotten meat." After that, sarcasm was a self-defense mechanism, and let me tell you, I got a lot of comebacks and pure fake-it-till-you-make-it ballsiness from books.

Without books, I truly don't know if I would have survived school. I was picked on, tormented, scapegoated, taunted.