Enid Blyton – Thistles and Whistles

I’m a nostalgic girl. Some of my best bookish memories have been in my early years where I would do nothing but read and wander off into an imaginary world filled with adventures and mysteries. My books even accompanied me even on the lunch and dinner table! A couple of my classmates and I used to exchange reading material but that soon stopped when I realized my books would come back to me with unexplained food stains on their pages. Ugh!

If I ever had unlimited resources, a huge house and a personal home library, I would collect all my favourite childhood books for nostalgia’s sake, preferably in their first editions or the ones with the best vintage illustrations. Here’s a list of authors who would go in my ‘Nostalgia’ section:

Enid Blyton – Those of you who have been reading my bookish chatter here on the blog, might know how much I loved Enid Blyton growing up. I don’t recall how I got started with her books – probably by reading my sister’s old collection. I still remember checking out so many Enid Blyton books from my school library and bringing them home to devour within the next 3 hours. One particular memory is of a 3-in-1 edition of The Naughtiest Girl in School which was a tattered, torn and well-read hardback with a pink cover. I could go on and on about why I loved these books so much but that’s for another post. Since I have not been fortunate to read all the 762 books she wrote from the 1920’s – 1960’s, I would love to own her entire collection! My favourite part used to be the beautiful, vintage illustrations in most of her books!

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Agatha Christie – Hail the Queen of Crime! Dame Agatha is definitely one of my other favourite literary ladies and it was only natural that I transitioned from one famous British lady to another as I grew up. In fact, I hope she and Enid Blyton are having a cup of tea while chatting books or plotting a village mystery together up there! I would definitely want her books to be on my shelves, all 80 of them! My favourite part of her books were the shocking endings!

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Carolyn Keene – Yes, I am most definitely talking about Nancy Drew. I have read so many Nancy Drews growing up but haven’t read all versions written by 28 different ghost writers under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. For my literary collection however, I would love to go back to the original 23 ones when the character first appeared in 1930 as a spunky amateur sleuth of 18 years. These vintage collectibles were written by Mildred Wirt Benson and I would like to gift them to my sister because she very much wants to read the very first ones.

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Betty Neels – My sister LOVES Neels’ simplistic romance novels published by Mills and Boon and when our neighbourhood library closed down, my sister salvaged as many of her books as she could find. The theme in all her books is always the same – a young English nurse falls in love with a famous Dutch doctor and thinks she is resigned to a lifetime of unrequited love. I would definitely want to add all 134 books to my collection and gift to my sister.

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J.K Rowling – While I was a huge fan of Harry Potter in my mid teenage years, I have never owned the books. I know the series is still quite popular but many decades later, it will be a rare collectible item so I would like to own the first editions for sure.
Classics – My favourite classics growing up were Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, What Katy Did series by Susan Coolidge and Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster. I recently realised that these books that I personally own are abridged versions! I would love to own all these rare vintage books with beautiful illustrations and read them all over again in their original format!

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A great website for rare collectibles is Invaluable where you can find antique items such as art, jewelry, toys, wines, books and other items up for auction. According to Invaluable, their most popular item at a recent auction held in May for Hollywood Books, Art and Ephemera was the Pulitzer Prize Winner The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, an author-signed first edition published in 1939. Have a look at their entire books section to see if you can find something you would like to own!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images above. All credit goes to their owners.

What are some rare vintage books that you own or would like to add to your dream literary collection? I would love to know in the comments below.

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Every hobby has a reason behind it. Every passion has a story.

My hobby of reading and subsequently my interest in writing stemmed from my dad’s bedtime stories that he would faithfully relate every night. He would always weave stories of kind kings who would sometimes dress up as villagers to make sure their kingdom was well-looked after, big palaces and arty thieves that stole from them managing to baffle the royal security guards. I would love his made-up stories often impatiently asking “And then what happened?” while he thought of the next twist in the tale. Sometimes he would fall asleep in the middle of the story and I would wake him up and make him finish it.

I don’t remember the first ever book that I picked up, all I knew is that once I started reading, I never stopped. I devoured Enid Blyton books like they were the delicious cucumber sandwiches, fruit cake and ginger ale she wrote about in her lovely, cosy tales. I fed on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators and I consumed Nancy Drews. I read Archies comics, Tinkle Digest and Champak magazines. I read the local magazines – Junior News and Young Times. I was unstoppable. I think my library card in school had the most books issued. I don’t know if that’s true but I did read a lot.

My dad never stopped me. In fact he was the one who encouraged me to read, read and read some more. He took me to local libraries and got membership cards for me everywhere. I was always surrounded by books. In school too I would be borrowing and lending books with friends who shared the interest.

My dad would always encourage me to write too. He would ask me to write letters to my cousins and other family members. He made me send letters to the editor, opinions and stories to those local magazines I mentioned. He had the proudest and the happiest face when they got published. I had a typewriter that I would tap away on. One that he had gotten for my sister but since she was studying in India for a couple of years, I was using it. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tappity tap….chiiiing !

My love for books was indescribable. I was so captivated by them that I didn’t want to put them down when it was time for meals or for bed. And so I would get under my snug blanket and read by torchlight until the last word had been read. And then I would hug my book and drift off to sleep with my glasses on. I often re-read my books because I just couldn’t get enough of the adventures of the Secret Seven, The Famous Five and The Five Find-Outers. They made me happy and the food described in them would make my mouth water even though I had no idea what scones, macaroons and root beer were. Was it alcohol for children? I would always wonder. My heart would skip a beat when the Five Find-Outers got into trouble with the villains or Mr. Goon and I would cheer when Fatty solved the mystery.

In my mid-teens, I had advanced into books like Agatha Christies and Harry Potter and Mills & Boon. I enjoyed all of them. I admit that I am not a very adventurous reader so I didn’t read what everyone else was reading – Sidney Sheldon, Michael Crichton, John Grisham and Jeffrey Archer. They were all a mystery to me and still are. I always stayed within my comfort zone.

My sister has an equally voracious appetite for books so we had a joint membership in our neighborhood library for 11 years until it finally closed down in the summer of 2008 because people were just not reading anymore. That year became a huge turning point in my life in many ways. I had just graduated and was looking for employment. I was feeling lost in many ways and I didn’t need the loss of my happy place – the library.

Pretty soon, I realized my love for printed books weaned. I am not proud to say this but I moved on to read free online books which were mostly romance novels that had repetitive story lines. My happy place gone, I was lost. I was incredibly depressed and I read one trashy novel after another. I sometimes re-read some of my old comforting collection again, though not so much. I was impatient and irritable. Since I didn’t have an eBook reader, my laptop provided me no comfort that the feel and smell of a book does. I could no longer feel the crispy or the yellowed-with-age paper, dog-ear my pages or be able to hear what the words spoke out to me.

Since my ties with my books are so severed, I am trying my best to have the healthy relationship that I once had. It’s harder than I thought it would be because the urge to pick up a book and finish it had reduced. I hope that I can soon get back on the same familiar footing I had with them.

I now realize what power my books had on me, how much they shaped my life and how they made me who I am. I realize that your friends may come and go but books that have made a special place in your heart will never leave you. For they become part of you. Always and Forever.

You can email me at thistlesandwhistles@hotmail.com
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