Another Reason to Make Myself a Pauper

For andrew who asked and leigh who answered:

There was a time, in my childhood, when, perhaps because I had been raised among books and booksellers, I dreamed of becooming a novelist.

The root of my literary ambitions, apart from the marvelous simplicity which one sees things at the age of five, lay in a prodigious piece of craftmanship and precision that was exhibited in a fountain-pen shop on Calle Anselmo Clave, just behind the Military Government building.

The object of my devotion, a plush black pen, adorned with heaven knows how many refinements and flourishes, presided over the shop window as if it were the crown jewels. A baroque fantasy magnificently wrought in silver and gold that shone like the lighthouse in Alexandria, the nib was a wonder in its own right.

When my father and I went out for a walk, I wouldn't stop pestering him until he took me to see the pen. My father declared that it must be, at the very least, the pen of an emperor.

I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations...

From Carlos Luis Zafon's A Shadow in the Wind.

Seen in the wild:

Here are a few books I've seen in 2nd-hand bookshops...

• A hardbound of Michael Swanwick's novel, Bones of the Earth;
• What could be Iain M. Banks' last Culture novel, Look to Windward (mmpb, a bit battered);
• A reprint of Maxwell Grant's The Shadow (which I can't remember the title);
• Another reprint of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu (also can't remember the title); and
• Several reprints of Capt. W.E. Johns' Biggles adventure series.

Wonder what's with all the reprints of the old pulp series?