I keep a lot of memorabilia, and old LPs are among the mix. A few weeks ago I was looking through my album collection with my seven year old daughter when she came across my Shaun Cassidy "white album," as I like to call it. "Who's this guy?," she asked. It only took me a moment to queue up the vinyl, and before long, she was completely hooked on the pure pop musicality of "Hey Deanie." A few days later her dad, much to his chagrin, was putting thirty year old Shaun Cassidy songs on her ipod right next to her contemporary favorites like Call Me Maybe and Dynamite. I guess this goes to show that there's nothing like a good pop song.

What could this post possibly have to do with books? That's simple, really -- The Hardy Boys! Back in the late 1970s, I would tune into ABC every Sunday night to catch an hour episode of The Hardy Boys TV show. I had a massive crush on both Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson (who didn't?). They had absolutely perfect hair, and they were such good sleuths, weren't they? The show inspired me to seek out The Hardy Boys books and from there I found Nancy Drew. (The Nancy Drew books warrant their own post so that's to come.) After reading widely in both series, I became hooked on mysteries and am still to this day. So there you have it -- inspiration sometimes stems from the unlikeliest sources.