The other day, I stumbled across a post on Facebook that sent me right back to my youth, sitting on the edge of my bed in a tiny bedroom in La Crescenta, California, completely absorbed in the words and pictures of Edwin Tunis.
For several years running when I was probably 10-12 years old, I got for my birthday or Christmas a volume of Tunis’s work. The author and illustrator delved deep into early American material culture — and I still remember the evocative pen-and-ink drawings that filled his books Frontier Living; Colonial Living; and Indians.
I wonder what ever became of those books…
Padre says
Now I’ve gotten pulled into a flashback to checking those books out of the public library when I was a kid. (I thought of the smell of the library books almost immediately.) I loved those and the books of C. Keith Wilbur.
JimC says
Yes — it’s a physical sensation, ain’t it. Cool.
John M Roberts says
My favorite Tunis book was WEAPONS. I think the librarians in the various towns I grew up in got tired of me checking that one out all the time.
JimC says
The beginnings of your expertise. I don’t think I ever saw that one. I must say, though, i am sorely tempted to track down several of those volumes and return them to my library after 40+ years.
Melodious Thunk says
Powell’s Books is now selling a perfume that smells like old books.
JimC says
I saw a post on that. There are all kinds of ruin-your-life-noir possibilities with this…
“The dame stalked through my door like a hunting tigress, trailing an intoxicating scent of old books.”
Melodious Thunk says
Find Richie Fahey’s Librarian (Quiet Please).