Not Nancy Drew

The weather turned rainy and chilly overnight. I wore a sweatshirt and hoodie jacket when I went outside, but it was almost cold enough for a coat. I figured the weather would remain cold now, but I checked the forecast and the temperatures will be up and down. Today the high temperature is 48 degrees but it will gradually climb to 60 in a couple of days. The overnight lows will be in the low 30s or 40s. I waited until EJ left for work and then turned the furnace back on. He sometimes teases me about turning on/up the furnace but he doesn’t actually care if I turn it on. We are usually in agreement about keeping the thermostat lower to conserve propane. However, I think it makes a better story if I pretend I’m sneaking behind his back.

The leaves have been falling from the trees like a shower of confetti. Yesterday most of the trees had most of their leaves. Today probably half the trees are now bare.

Yesterday afternoon I saw blood on our older rooster’s leg. I didn’t know if it was the result of a kerfuffle with Edward the Turd or if he had killed a mouse or snake or something. I didn’t see blood on his leg today.

This has been a difficult week because our cat Little Bear is sick. He’s old–at least 14 years old–and we are not sure he’s going to make it. But I don’t want to write about that. Instead, I will write about books.

In 2022 I read that “Only a third of 10-year-olds globally are estimated to be able to read and understand a simple written story. The rest around two-thirds (64%) are unable to cover this marker for minimum proficiency in reading comprehension.” In looking up that information today to make sure I remembered it correctly, I read that two-thirds of American children can’t read fluently and that ““The shares of American 9- and 13-year-olds who say they read for fun on an almost daily basis have dropped from nearly a decade ago and are at the lowest levels since at least the mid-1980s.” I also read that In the United States, “14 percent of the adult population—a staggering 32 million adults—cannot read” EJ has told me that the majority of his co-workers haven’t read a book since they left high school. This appalls EJ and me because our lives have been so enriched by books. We have a home library filled with hundreds of books of many different genres: history, literature, travel, language, how-to-books, biographies, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction… I could write much about the many ways that books have enriched my life. However, I want to narrow my focus to describe two–or maybe three or four or five–books that I’ve read and the things I’ve learned through them.

I love to buy books from thrift shops and library used book sales because the books are so inexpensive that I can buy many for a few dollars. Also, because they are inexpensive, I can take a risk on new authors. If I see a book that seems interesting I add it to the pile of books I’m buying, knowing that if I don’t like it, I can easily re-donate it without remorse because I didn’t pay much money for it. I have found some favorite authors by taking a risk at a used book sale.

A few weeks ago, I read a book I had bought from one of our library’s used book sales. It wasn’t a genre that I like. I usually stay away from books that are described as “hilarious” or “rollicking fun.” Your taste might be different than mine, and that’s fine but, in my opinion, the authors of books like these seem to focus so much on trying to be funny that they aren’t funny at all–and their story suffers. Also, they are filled with annoying cliches. They remind me of a vaudeville act or a sitcom with a laugh track. EJ says it’s because I like observational humor–laughing about people’s and life’s absurdities rather than heavy-handed “hilarity.”

Despite my dislike of this genre, I risked buying this book because its title was “Not A Girl Detective” and it was about Nancy Drew. I loved Nancy Drew books when I was younger. I still have most of them packed away in boxes. I had hoped to pass them on to a daughter but, alas, I never had a daughter. I often discuss with EJ books that I enjoy or learn from. He says he has learned a lot from me over the years (as I have him). Being a boy, EJ never read Nancy Drew books but early in our marriage, possibly when we discussed favorite childhood books, I told EJ about Nancy Drew. I said she could find a mystery in EVERYTHING and ANYTHING, no matter how trivial. I remember in one book, I think it was “The Secret of Red Gate Farm,” a saleswoman in a shop refused to sell Nancy the last bottle of a particular perfume. Nancy thought that was strange and, of course, she uncovered a huge mystery behind it. I told EJ that because “I’m not Nancy Drew,” I would have simply assumed that the store was reserving the last bottle of perfume for a favorite customer. Over the years, whenever EJ and I have become aware of some thing or event that was not what it had appeared to be, we have said, “Well, after all, we are not Nancy Drew.” If one of us questions, “What is that person doing?” Or “Why is he doing that?” Or “What’s happening?” the other will reply, “How do I know? I’m not Nancy Drew.” It’s become a family saying. So I couldn’t resist buying the book.

As expected, “Not a Girl Detective” suffered from the author trying to cram in too many jokes. However, the book also had a lot of very interesting history about Nancy Drew books. I had heard years ago that the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books were written by the same author under different names, but I didn’t know that multiple authors were actually part of a writing syndicate who wrote those and other books. They all signed a form promising to never divulge that they were one of the authors writing as Carolyn Keene (or as the authors of the other books). There was a lot of other history about Nancy Drew in the book as well.

Sometimes when I read a story that has “history,” I look it up on the Internet to verify if the information is true. For example, earlier this year I read a historical fiction series about a lawyer during the time of King Henry VIII. I went online to learn how accurate that information was and in the process I enjoyed hours of delving into the history of Middle Ages lawyers, King Henry VIII and his wives, the other English kings, the War of the Roses, and some of the warships of that time.

I also enjoy Dick Francis mysteries. Dick Francis used to be a jockey in the UK; he even occasionally rode the Queen’s horses. After he was injured in a race, he turned to writing. All his books have some connection to horses, although his characters are not always jockeys or trainers. In his books, I’ve learned about horse racing, glassmaking, renovating old buildings, and a lot of other things. In one of his books, his main character worked as a waiter on a passenger train traveling across Canada as he sought to investigate a crime. The train carried horses and their owners to various racetracks in Canada from coast to coast. I followed the progress of the train on Google Maps and learned about some beautiful areas (such as Banff National Park) that I had previously been unaware of. I also learned information about working on a train. I once found an old video on YouTube of Dick Francis actually riding in a race.

I think I own all of the books in Jennifer Chiaverini’s Elm Creek Quilts series. Her stories are woven around the history of quilts. The books are very interesting and I’ve learned a lot about quilts. One book mentioned the winners of a quilt contest in a world fair. I looked up information and now own a book about the quilts entered into that world fair. In one of her books, “The New Year’s Quilt,” the main characters stay in a B&B in New York City over the holidays. A German couple was also there and they were crushed when they discovered that no one knew of the German tradition of watching a short movie called “A Dinner For One” on New Year’s Eve. They had expected to watch it with the other guests. I looked up the movie to see if it actually exists. It does, and EJ and I watched it together just for the cultural knowledge. Months later, I asked a German woman in a Telegram chat group if watching that movie on New Year’s Eve was a German tradition. The woman gasped, “How did you know this?!” because most Americans have never heard of it. The movie is silly but I’m sure that it becomes funnier since Germans tend to match the characters’ drink for drink and get drunk while watching it.

Books are often the jumping off point to exploring things I didn’t previously know.

So, anyway, despite its failings, “Not A Girl Detective” taught me some interesting history about the Nancy Drew books that I hadn’t known. Here is one of the articles that I found about it: The Secret Syndicate Behind Nancy Drew.” I’m not sure if I will re-donate the book because the story is meh, or keep it because of the Nancy Drew information.

I’m currently reading a library-sale book called “The Diary of a Bookseller” by Shaun Bythell who owns a used bookstore in Scotland. I can’t resist buying books about books, especially when they have books and a cat pictured on the cover. I’m thoroughly enjoying this book and often laugh out loud while reading it. Written in diary format, it has the observational humor I enjoy, as well as descriptions of the highs and lows of the book trade, Shaun’s buying trips to old estates, the effect Amazon has on small bookstores, and the eccentric customers and daily life he deals with. It also has interesting historical, literary, and philosophical facts sprinkled throughout. This book is so enjoyable that last night I took pictures of a few of the pages–ones with stories I thought EJ would enjoy–and messaged them to him so he could read them on his breaks. He said he really enjoyed them. It lifted his spirits.

That’s a tiny glimpse of how books often teach me and enrich my life.

At 5:30 p.m. tonight, EJ messaged me from work that I might want to turn on the furnace. I laughed that I already had. He replied that he had just finished telling a co-worker that I probably had. LOL.