The title of this entry comes from one of my favorite cartoons.  If you don’t want to click, it’s a drawing of a man lying in a hammock holding a flyswatter and smacking away at books flying up at him like pesky insects.  The caption is this entry’s title.

When I was a kid, I remember finishing our Air Force base library’s stock of Nancy Drew books and wanting more.  A year later I whipped through outer space with all the Robert Heinlein books our school library owned and mourned being earthbound again when I’d read them all.  Dad snapped this picture when I discovered Judge Dee.  Later I passed the hours overseas with the collections of Agatha Christie from various Army libraries.  I was always on a search for new titles and would read slowly to make the books last longer because once I finished a collection at the library, that was it.

Nowadays, I can’t keep up.  Goodreads notifies me about good reads by email, as does Bas Bleu.  The DorothyL list is a virtual avalanche of titles.  I Love A Mystery just called to say that Jo Nesbø’s latest book is in the store, and the library emailed me that my online requests have arrived and are waiting to be picked up.  I haven’t yet clicked “buy” on my latest cartful at Amazon.   Then there are the books on the shelves here at home that cry at me about how they are neglected.

I have to wonder if Johnnie Gutenberg had any idea about what he was unleashing.