February 18, 2025

Savoring the Possessions (and BOOKS!) That Last

One night last week, I was making dinner and realized that the appliance I was using had been in my life since December 2000. It’s almost 25 years old! I remarked on this to my husband, and we started to try to think of all of the things we own that predate our relationship, which began in June 2002. 

The fridge! He bought that a few years prior to meeting me, and we moved it with us when we bought our house.

My sewing table! It was my mom’s, and I’m pretty sure it predates my birth. 

He has a piggy (actually a deer) bank he got as a child; I have a jewelry box I got as a child; I have a sweatshirt I acquired from the university PE department when I was in my undergrad; he still has his truck he bought a few months before he met me. 

We still have several things we received as wedding gifts in 2005 ~ the KitchenAid mixer, a fruit bowl. We definitely have dishes that date to around that time, although neither of us remembers buying them. Maybe he had them before we met?

In this disheartening age of new-is-better, unboxing videos, and shopping hauls, I would most definitely rather contemplate these long relationships with possessions rather than the (estimated) six microwaves we have gone through due to breakage … the five toasters, the seven vacuum cleaners, the three washer-dryer sets, and so on.  

In this time of fast fashion and everyone talking about wanting and buying shiny new things all of the time, this time of things breaking shortly after buying them, it satisfies me so deeply to think of the things that last. That have held up, stayed useful, and proved worthy for all of these years.

I have been pondering the same in my reading life lately as well, as evidenced by some of my recent reads.

The astonishing book I finished recently that was first published in 1962. A wild ride of a 2007 historical romance that I just listened to. A current slow read of a 1979 novel that claims to be one of the best-selling novels ever written. And of course, my chapter-a-day reading of Emma, which was published in 1815. I am relishing these books that have stood the test of time, and am wondering which of the newer books I have read recently will still be in print or talked about in 25 years. 

I think that actually predicting what will last in books is impossible, but it was fun to look back at the NYT list of Best Books of 2000 and see if I recognized any of them as still talked about today … two of them! According to that columnist, 2000 was a horrible year for good books - ha! Maybe because all of the literati were so worried about Y2K that they weren’t writing as much in 1999? 

I decided that I don’t always recognize many of the NYT Best of titles, even in any given current year, so I then looked at the Goodreads list of the most popular titles of 2000, and was much more encouraged. So many of these books are still widely available and discussed today, and many of the youth titles are actually still on my middle school library shelves.

I was in my freshman year of college in 2000 and while I was definitely reading then, I was also drowning in classwork and an accounting major… I wasn’t paying super close attention to literary trends. The fact that I recognize so many of these books is because they are still in bookstores and libraries today. That gives me hope!

On a related note, I have been thinking a lot more lately about the romance canon and have had a strong urge to explore deep backlist here, especially in historical romances. Adding to that urge was this Fated Mates episode with my very favorite Adriana Herrera, and then I read this interview with Loretta Chase in Book Page that led me to Lord of Scoundrels (moved WAY up my TBR!) which led me somehow, I can’t remember, to this 2015 list from NPR of 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances.  

My reading whims change on a dime, but I am excited to use this already-aged list to explore more deep backlist in the romance genre, and of course, keep reading deep backlist in other areas as well. I definitely want to explore more of the NYT Best Books of the 21st century list  (gift link) that was released last year ~ at age 44, this list encompasses the majority of my adulthood! 

I will, of course, still be reading new releases too, and continuing my fervent quest to catch up on everything I missed in 2024 ~ but the gentler feeling and slower pace of going back decades is such a relief.

Oh, and that appliance I mentioned at the beginning of this piece? It’s the George Foreman grill my HS / early college boyfriend’s mom bought me for Christmas of 2000 when I mentioned that I finally had enough credits to cancel my university meal plan I could no longer afford. She was worried I would starve to death in the dorms with no kitchen. I have been making hamburgers on it for almost 25 years now, and won’t make them indoors any other way!

Thanks for stopping by!