Before Mom passed away a year ago, she told me what she wanted done with her personal library. She didn't get to finish high school, but she was well read and her library showed that. Nine good sized bookcases were packed with science fiction, European history, thrillers, mysteries and many odd titles. She was fascinated by where dust came from, with the hundreds of years the Thames River was polluted and how it got cleaned up. The fire in the 1600s that nearly wiped out the town of London. There are books on animal stories, one about a family that adopted a donkey, a couple others about beloved pets that traveled with their owners. There are three books that are over seventy years old, given to her as gifts when she was a child.
After I moved to a smaller apartment, I got as many books as I could onto the bookshelves but there's still some eight banana boxes stuffed with all sorts of genres. I didn't pay much attention to Mom's interests since our tastes in reading were as different as night and day. There was also the fact that I have a small library of my own, most of which I have yet to read but I'm getting there, slow but sure. In the process of putting books on shelves I spent a bit more time paying attention to genres, reading blurbs. Authors like Frederick Forsythe, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler have to wait their turn because another author caught my attention. C. J. Box.
Mr. Box has written a series called the Joe Pickett novels. Joe is married and has three daughters. He's a fish and game warden in the state of Wyoming and has 1500 miles to oversee. And he never fails to find himself in trouble, trying to do the right thing. After reading one of the Pickett novels in Mom's library, I was hooked. (pun intended.) Joe is my current hero. He's more true-to-life than a lot of heroes I've read about over the years. His supervisors don't like him because he refuses to turn a blind eye to some of the goings on in his district, and he also has a reputation for being really hard vehicles and equipment. In his defense, it's rarely his fault. Joe's friend, Nate Romanowski, might be wanted by the FBI but Joe trusts Nate with his life, and the lives of his family. The two of them often create a formidable team to solve the current mystery.
While Joe and Nate have become an enjoyable part of my reading time, I've been ignoring those other eight cartons of books that sit stacked in a corner of my living room, still needing to be sorted. I believe Anne Perry is hiding in at least one of those cartons. I'm not sure who else might be hiding with her. I do know that about half my own library is sitting in neat little stacks on the floor in my room, waiting patiently for shelf space that also doesn't exist yet. Eventually they'll all be gone through, sorted and some finding new homes. I have a feeling the process is going to take longer than I'd like. After all, who would want to miss out on whatever gems might be waiting to be rediscovered?
