Anything on mystery and adventure. Or Suspense and thrillers. These books were a big part of our daily staple when we were growing up. And, boy, did we have insatiable appetites for them all.
It all started with the prolific writings of Enid Blyton. The outrageous adventures her characters go through, all set in a faraway place, catapulted our minds beyond imagination. Then, came the Hardy boys, Edgar Rice books. Even comic heroes like Tintin, Asterix etc. were suffice for our hungry minds. Anything that had even a faint whiff of an adventure, we would grab our imaginary backpacks and be ready to travel along with zest. From adventures, we later moved on to the mystery series of Poirot or the legendary Holmes, which used to race our pulses and send us down to a dark and underground world, so removed from reality.
We used to get all these treasures from the dingy and dusty libraries nearby. The books were so old that the print would be barely visible through the yellow and parched paper. The poor things always led a solitary, disgraceful life on the shelves. But, only till they arrived at our house. Bring out the trumpets, lay on the red carpets, we seemed to yell. Yes, they got no less than a royal treatment at our home. And, the way we pounced on each other and bitterly fought on who gets to read them first, seemed to magically rejuvenate these wilted papers and give them a fresh lease of life.
Even though the books eventually became passe, and we moved on to other genres, i would like to thank all those effervescent heroes who shared their daring adventures with me and paved the road to a lifelong pleasure of reading....
It all started with the prolific writings of Enid Blyton. The outrageous adventures her characters go through, all set in a faraway place, catapulted our minds beyond imagination. Then, came the Hardy boys, Edgar Rice books. Even comic heroes like Tintin, Asterix etc. were suffice for our hungry minds. Anything that had even a faint whiff of an adventure, we would grab our imaginary backpacks and be ready to travel along with zest. From adventures, we later moved on to the mystery series of Poirot or the legendary Holmes, which used to race our pulses and send us down to a dark and underground world, so removed from reality.
We used to get all these treasures from the dingy and dusty libraries nearby. The books were so old that the print would be barely visible through the yellow and parched paper. The poor things always led a solitary, disgraceful life on the shelves. But, only till they arrived at our house. Bring out the trumpets, lay on the red carpets, we seemed to yell. Yes, they got no less than a royal treatment at our home. And, the way we pounced on each other and bitterly fought on who gets to read them first, seemed to magically rejuvenate these wilted papers and give them a fresh lease of life.
Even though the books eventually became passe, and we moved on to other genres, i would like to thank all those effervescent heroes who shared their daring adventures with me and paved the road to a lifelong pleasure of reading....