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April 16, 2004
The Nice Person At The Library Who Just Has to Ruin Everything.
I might have mentioned how I love the library. I love picking out all those books they bought with my tax dollars. I love poking around on the badly designed monochrome monitored 'online' card catalogue and seeing what's what...
I love just checking out everything and anything and not being too disappointed when a book sucks, because, hell, it's free!
and, speaking of free, I've been working my way through the free new mysteries at the free new books section at the free library.
and, so far, EVERY SINGLE BOOK has been spoiled. in a most fabulous way. In a way I wish I could have thought of.
someone, with very sweet and loopy cursive strokes, has been putting clues in the margins of the mystery novels.
it starts out small:
"notice the gun, on the nightstand - she's going to put it on the mantel, next."
and there it is, two pages later - the gun is, indeed, right there on the mantel.
then the margin clues go awry, just to throw you off:
"wouldn't it be great if it was Detective X?"
and don't you know, I think back and reflect upon the timeline and almost fall for it, reading a few pages more while thinking "ooh. detective X would SO do that" before his alibi is revealed or he reveals himself to be dyslexic or right-handed or armenian or whatever super-obvious thing would rule him out other than a schedule conflict...
and then, finally, about a chapter before the big 'whodunnit' spectacular of the book, there it is. the one 'hint' that lets you know exactly was going to happen:
"one word. 'kittens'"
and everything after that is just cleaning up loose non-mysterious ends, really.
if I were uptight about this sort of thing, about knowing how a story ends before I get there, well, then I wouldn't watch documentaries and ron howard films and hollywood teen sex comedies. (wait, maybe I should become more uptight about this sort of thing....)
but, as you may have guessed, I love this. I want to meet the mystery annotator. I want to sharpen his or her pencils. I want to re-read every book I've ever read, but only after s/he has read it.
and, of course, only after they've made notes in the margins.
it's better than a book club - no deadlines! no morning show hosts! no slugging through a dud because you're hosting the next gathering . . . just flowery little plot-exposing one-liners.
I'm totally putting my number in the next mystery I read before s/he does. I'll let y'all know if I get a call.
Posted by Heather at April 16, 2004 01:36 PM
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Comments
I think I'd be pretty annoyed at first, but I can see how it would become incredibly funny by, say, book 12.
Posted by: Andrew at April 19, 2004 01:25 PM
i'm incredibly jealous.
Posted by: rachel at April 26, 2004 01:15 PM