The delights of trash

I snapped this on the way out of our hotel room yesterday. I love forgotten old paperbacks like this, which always crop up on hotel bookshelves. (It was sitting next to the inevitable out-of-sequence Len Deighton, another hotel classic.)

In both its appearance and the writing within, this is pure trash. (I meant to scribble down a juicy quote to pass on, but time and children wait for no man.) Nevertheless, if you're anything like me (and anything like as old), it sparks a gentle little pang of nostalgia. It's the sort of book you find in your granny's house, or on those squeaky revolving racks in the Sue Ryder shop. They've become imbued with a sort of gentle, whimsical melancholy, and I can't help but love them, trash as they are. Perhaps I'll begin a collection.

(Stop Press: The internet, of course, has just robbed me of the charming sense of mystery around this book. A quick Google reveals that Wikipedia has everything you never wanted to know about Taylor Caldwell, and there's even an Appreciation Society. I'm trying to maintain my aforementioned gentle, whimsical melancholy, but it's not an emotion that easily survives an onslaught of cold, hard facts.)

Comments

[davidthedesigner]

Ah, but can anyone tell us what typeface 'THIS SIDE OF INNOCENCE' is set in?

Go on, Richard, I bet you know.