A Few of My Favorite Books

My little library

Maybe I have a face for radio. A very small station in Cincinnati, WMKV, invited me to hold forth on a call-in program about book collecting. My subject, of course,  would be Sherlock Holmes.

My objection that I’m actually an accumulator of books and not a collector was met with an assurance that the listeners aren’t collectors either. Having no good rebuttal to that, I agreed to go to the studio for an hour on Friday, April 7.

I plan to talk about some of the books in my library that are most meaningful to me – The Complete Sherlock Holmes that I bought with my own money in the seventh grade, the rare Three Problems for Solar Pons that I picked up for a quarter at a library sale, and several books that look and feel like volumes I read when I was very young.  

I’ll also explain the Shaw 100, recommend Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, tell the story of Vincent Starrett’s Holmes collections, and discuss the Holmes material stolen in my first Sebastian McCabe – Jeff Cody mystery, No Police Like Holmes.

All of that may take less time than I think, so help me out. What’s your favorite Holmes book now residing on your shelves and why? Or what’s your favorite story about how you got a book? Or your favorite story about how you didn’t get a book?

If you’re willing to share with me, I’m willing to share with the radio audience. This is starting to seem like fun.