Later, back at his hotel room, he blows the whistle. Unfortunately, Parkins can decipher only part of the Latin inscription on his archaeological discovery, something about somebody. There Professor Parkins unearths a metallic tube about 4 inches long it is, in fact, an ancient whistle of some odd sort. That story, when I read it later that evening, concerns a young academic who, on holiday at the seashore, explores some ancient ruins. Michael Dirda is also the author of Classics for Pleasure. I'd particularly enjoyed The Hound of the Baskervilles, in part because it was more than a little scary. But more recently I'd been devouring Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the Sherlock Holmes stories. As a little kid, I'd loved Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars and Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint and Tom Swift in the Caves of Nuclear Fire. Books were my own private adventure.Īnd I do mean adventure. I never thought to ask librarians for advice, and my parents never read anything except the newspaper. There can't have been more than one- or two-thousand books.Īt age 12 or 13, I seldom had any particular title or author I was looking for. Inside there were perhaps six small tables, a couple of reading chairs, the librarian's checkout desk, and light oak bookshelves along three walls. Located in the Plaza Shopping Center, this former storefront was just around the corner from the W.T. When I was a boy growing up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio, I used to ride my beloved Roadmaster bicycle to the branch library. Michael Dirda's latest book is On Conan Doyle. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural Author Herbert A.
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