Spine Tingling

I grew up in a household of books.  There were large bookcases in our living room, Dad's study, a hallway, and my bedroom.  Some of my earliest memories are of my parents' reading to me from not only my own books but also from books I selected from their shelves.  I recall the multi-volume gardening encyclopedia that was one of my favorites; Daddy patiently read the names of the plants and flowers while I pored over the photographs.  The shrubbery volume was my least favorite . . . too plain!  I also gravitated toward some sort of home health encyclopedia: the four red volumes with gold spine lettering drew me like a beacon.  Hindsight tells me these were from the 1950's when polio was still a very real spectre on the health scene.  I was fascinated by the article about polio and the accompanying photograph of the "iron lung" machine.  Looking back, I'm sure Daddy didn't read the article word for word, but rather wove a story around the various photographs of a young girl who had contracted that feared disease. 

One particular two-volume set captured my imagination like no other, but I never selected them for reading (no illustrations!).  The art on the dust jackets formed the silhouette of a "robber" as I termed it, and I was fascinated by how these two books fit together.  Sometimes I even took the liberty of rearranging them so that the silhouette was split.  Daddy had a lightweight black raincoat, and one particularly gusty rainy night as he came in the door the wind caught the back of his coat, whereby I announced excitedly that he "looked like the robber on the books".  For that sheer sentimental reason, I brought those two books back with me during the summer my parents were packing for their big move.  I was delighted to discover that the title of this set is A Treasury of Great Mysteries, with full-length novels, "novelettes", and short stories by such greats as Dorothy L. Sayers,  Georges Simenon, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart . . . all authors I love as an adult. 

Coincidence? Fate? No, just the good fortune to be raised in the midst of the written word, freely and lovingly shared.

The Captivating Spines

Note the red eye on the "robber"!

Part of the title page