Old Book Monday - May 7th

Quite a few book bloggers participate in a weekly meme in which they share delicious and mouth-watering pictures of the new books they have recently received. I love strolling through the blogosphere and checking out these pictures. A good book is a sensory delight for the whole body--a feast for the eyes, the ears, the nose, and the hands.

I don’t buy a lot of new books but realized I could still participate by sharing pictures of what I do buy a lot of—OLD books.

I love old books—I love the gilt and embossing on their covers, the heft of their pages, and the aristocratic look of them as they sit on my shelves. I especially love the small, pocket-sized old book. Somehow holding one always makes me feel delightfully old-fashioned, like an elegant lady from the 1800’s preparing for afternoon tea. I instantly feel transported to a slower, more fashionable time and can almost feel my long skirts rustling around my ankles as I smooth my perfectly coiffed hair.

So for my first entry into the “New Old Books I Bought Recently Monday” meme, I’d like to share with you a very special edition of Ivanhoe I recently purchased (isn't the cover gorgeous?).

Writers are often asked where they get their ideas and most of the time we all say the same thing—who knows; it just comes to us. However, for once I can point directly to a source.

Ivanhoe is one of my favorite books to begin with and, like Jane Eyre, I collect copies of it, so this book instantly caught my eye when I saw it on the shelf in a second-hand shop. However, as soon as I opened it, I knew it was something special.

This was a special edition of Ivanhoe that was apparently created specifically to be sold in drug stores and, as such, is peppered with ads for products one would find at the druggists. Every five to ten pages there’s an ad for a product ranging from liver pills to tooth cleaner to beauty cream.

As I read these ads—some funny, some clearly scams, some frightening in how fraudulent the claims—I knew I HAD to find a way to use some of the fabulous details presented in these ads in a story.

Luckily, just such an occasion offered itself with my current WIP. I can’t tell you exactly how I’ve used the ads, but suffice it to say these ads have provided some incredible first hand research into the speech patterns and contemporary cultural references of two characters, which lends a dramatically increased sense of realism and authenticity to them.

So how about you? If you participate in any of the weekly book sharing memes, then please leave a comment with a link to your blog in the comments. And if you're a lover of old books like me, then feel free to jump on board with "Old Book" Monday!