Just finished a book for work. It was a crime thriller set in Charm City, Jewel of the East, place of my birth, hon. But I don’t blog about these reads (why?), so instead you get some rambling musings far past my bedtime and a peek at one of the books in my permanent collection.

I used to read while I blew my hair dry in the morning before school. I’ve never done that anywhere else I’ve ever lived, but whenever I visit my parents and have to blow-dry my hair, I am overcome with an overpowering BOREDOM and have to have a book to entertain me.

I liked to read scary books from a young age, but I couldn’t have them in my bedroom with me. If they were particularly scary (by Lois Duncan, for example), I would put the book face down underneath the leg of the coffee table in the family room while I slept. I figured that would keep the book from surprising me in my sleep.

The next book that appears on my shelf in the permanent collection is Candle in Her Roomby Ruth M. Arthur. It’s about an evil doll that haunts three generations of women with awesome names like Briony and Dilys. This book is probably the origin of my obsession with the uncanny and the supernatural and the Gothic, and also with my fervent wishes that I’d wake up one morning and find out that I was really from England, accent and cool name and all.