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My mother liked pulpy mystery novels — not quite as salacious as some of these, but not too far off the mark — and had a collection of them stacked sideways like this on the shelf near her reading chair.
That chair had a high back and swivelled around; I used to sit there, turned toward the corner, pretending I was mysteriously hidden by that chair, and study the spines of the books. I re-sorted the pile by author, title, and again by color, and, finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I’d pull one out of the middle to admire the cover art.
Sometimes, it was a disappointment: just text, or some gumshoe in a fedora. Often, though, it was a thrilling delight: some lurid noir-ish scene, a threatened blond and guns blazing. I’d study it for a while, then slip it back into the stack and try to forget which title it belonged to, so I could be surprised again next time.