"One is silver and the other's gold..."
I was never in Girl Scouts, but for a short period of time I belonged to a Brownie troop. I think it was while I was a Brownie that I learned this ditty: "Make new friends, but kee-eeep the old. One is silver and the other's gold." At least, that's how I remember the words - not sure how reliable my memory is on song lyrics learned fifty-odd years ago. I bring this up because I recently realized I have a silver-and-gold relationship with books and authors. I'm not sure how it's intended in the song, but I've always taken the lyrics to mean that old friends are precious gold, and new friends are silver. By that token, my golden oldies include Agatha Christie, Mary Stewart, Ngaio Marsh, Doris Miles Disney, Patricia Wentworth, Paul Gallico, Dorothy Eden, Josephine Tey, Martha Grimes, Peter Robinson, P.D. James, Dick Francis, Ian Rankin, Evelyn Anthony, Ray Bradbury and James Thurber. My addiction to the books by many of these authors goes back near...