From the Landmark Books I read as a kid to history to mysteries, I've gone through
about four personal libraries reading and enjoying. This page has some links
to pages I've created and am creating about some of my favorite authors as well
as a list of books that I've enjoyed.
There's also an article of my own that I wrote back in 1959 in ninth grade. Fascinated
with Clarence Darrow I discovered that one of his early labor trials was in my hometown
of Oshkosh, Wisconsin and wrote an article that was published by the Wisconsin State
Historical Society. Upon the 100th anniversary of the trial in 1898, and at the
urging of my sister, I put this on the web. You can read the article
here.
Mysteries for Recreation..
I would guess that the Landmark Books had a lot to do with my lifelong interest
in History, to which I received a college degree, but as for recreational reading,
mysteries started at a young age with the Hardy Boys, the whole series collected
and read. I didn't renew an interest in mysteries until settled with a family I
started reading the John D.
McDonald Travis McGee books. Those paperbacks, yellowed and dog eared, still
get read by my wife and me.
Sherlock Holmes and His Apprentice:
Then one day in a bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana, a paperback with a strange
title caught my eye: A Monstrous Regiment
of Women by Laurie King. It was the second novel in a series of
books about a young woman who, in 1915, had met the retired Sherlock Holmes on the
Downs of Sussex and had formed a lifelong attachment. Eager to read more, the first
few pages of the first of the series, A
Beekeeper's Apprentice, are still some of my favorite pages of all
time.