I'm working my way through my vast collection of 1960s paperback books. Yesterday I discovered a copy paper box full of Agatha Christie books, and another full of Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason). I always pay attention to the copyright date of whatever book I'm reading, so I can picture the cars and the fashions.

If the book is a later printing sometimes the dated references have been updated. For example, one time I was reading a Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin) mystery written in the 1940s, and there was reference to a Beatle haircut. That just ruined it for me, because obviously the text had been edited for the 1965 version that I was reading.

Back to Agatha and Erle. I was shocked to see all these books by them here because I still have big stacks of their books back in Colorado, so I must have a lot of duplicates. I'll have to get the two sets back together and weed out the oldest versions to keep. Then, I'll figure out which ones I haven't read and read them.

We read Perry Mason mysteries a lot when we were kids. Our family didn't watch television as a rule, but we did see the Perry Mason show once in awhile. On TV he seemed to have a lot of integrity, I didn't see anything wrong with those courtroom stunts he pulled, but in the books there were a lot more shenanigans, such as sending Della Street off with the 25 year-old attractive young woman suspect to hide out from Lieutenant Tragg. Or booking a motel room in the same motel as where the corpse was discovered in order to cause confusion. But I never tired of those stories.