Clearing out the storage space downstairs, we came across a box of old books that I honestly think were put there JUST to be discovered.

All the books are almost twenty years old, dogged and a little dirty, musty and -- perhaps their biggest attribute -- completely absent from my memory.  I need to get rid of a couple of them, for sure, but not before I get a chance to leaf through them.

A bunch of them have those pages at the front where you can put your name, usually preceded by "from the library of..." or something like that.  Those need to come back, even though I would actually advise against anyone actually putting their name in.  Because I don't know about you, but when I get a used book with a name in it, I usually wonder what happened to that person.  They're probably dead.  And if you put your name in there, one day, you might be dead, too.

I haven't read through any of them yet (I need to do some proofreading for Tess and finish up a library book), but I can't wait to dig in.  Here's what I got:

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain -- with a strange two-coloured print all over the hardcover (a lot of these books are missing their dust covers) and creepy black and white etching illustrations, the kind that mix your childhood with artists recreations of crime scenes, with captions like "He seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in punishing the least shortcomings" and "Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground, dead" (Spoiler alert).  It's from the Heirloom Collection in London, so it's probably from a time before barcodes.

"King Arthur and His Knights" Illustrated by Harry Thacker -- with no actual author noted.  I'm definitely going to go through this since, like most people, I'm actually ignorant of a lot of the Round Table mythos.  There's titles like "The Empty Seat At The Round Table," which sounds foreboding, and "The Coming of Sir Galahad," which sounds inappropriate (especially if you remember his segment from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail.")  It's big type but what caught my eye is it's from the era where the knights seem to be wearing flowy dresses over their armour and that was totally acceptable.  And no mud or grunge in sight, which you can't get anymore.

"Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates."  -- this was all over my childhood.  I'm definitely keeping this one, if only to treat/torment my own children to it.

Two Peter Rabbit books.  Don't have much to say about that.

Here's a strange one- "The Island Of Sodor- Its People, History, and Railways" by The Rev W Awdry -- this is a fake tourist book about the island that "Thomas The Tank Engine" is set in, which you might overlook based on the cover.  And apparently there's a huge Welsh history on that island.  And strangest of all, there's a picture in there that looks just like me.

"The Green Fairy Book" -- best to be read from while imbibing absinthe.

In that vein, "The Water Babies" by Charles Kingsley -- these kinds of illustrations were all over on Portabello Road, very intricate and rich colours, just surprisingly few and far between.  It's a story that I have no recollection about and you never hear anyone talk about, so that's gotta be worth a little of my time.

"We Seven, by The Astronauts Themselves." -- Guys who actually went into space talk about space.  I think it was my dad's.

"The Wizard of Oz" by L Frank Baum -- course I gotta read this one, since everyone and their cousin is ripping it off.