Simanaitis Says
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TO MUM WITH LOVE, WITH BIBLIOPHILIA ADDED
A HEART-WARMING STORY comes from BBC News, November 17, 2022: “U.S. Blogger in Quest to Find Norfolk Mother’s Day Card Writer.” It’s a sweet tale that reminds me of my own bibliophilic tendencies.
“An Agatha Christie novel,” BBC News reports, “has yielded its own mystery with the discovery of a hand-drawn Mother’s Day card inside—4000 miles away. The former Norfolk library book was bought online by an American blogger who researches unsolved murders.”
Blogger vs. Website Proprietor. I personally dislike the term “blogger,” as used by BBC News. To me it conjures up an image of some dissolute kid accessing the Internet in his mother’s basement. I much prefer the term Website Proprietor.
Alice writes, “On my website, I write about old, unsolved cases. Most are from the pre-DNA era and need renewed media attention. I only do research and leave active investigations of these cases to the professionals.”
The ABC Murders. Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, 1936, is a Hercule Poirot mystery novel. It has been much “covered” in everything from a 1943 Charles Laughton Suspense radio version (sans Poirot) to The Alphabet Murders, a 1965 Tony Randall comedy. Wikipedia gives details, including a plot summary of the suspected-but-wrongly-accused red-herring traveling salesman, Alexander Bonaparte Cust.
Alice’s Find. “I buy lots of books online and former library books,” Alice de Sturler says. And when she opened her paperback purchase from Norfolk, England, she discovered a hand-made Mother’s Day card made from two notepad pages.
“It’s lovely,” Alice says, “It was probably used as a bookmark and by accident it was stuck in the book.” She recognized that the paperback “had once belonged to the Norfolk Library Service before it was taken off the shelves and sold on.”
“According to the library stamp,” BBC News reports, “it was last borrowed 24 January 2020.”
To Mum, Love from Kit XXXX. “If it was from my child,” says Alice, “I would want it back…. I am a sentimental journey kind of person who says, ‘I need to find mom.’ ”
BBC News concludes, “Anyone with information can contact BBC Radio Norfolk.”
Sharing Bibliophilia. Here at SimanaitisSays I share Alice’s bibliophilic sentiments and Internet sleuthing. Awhile back in “Dedicated, Signed, and (Maybe Warmly) Inscribed,” I offered my favorite inscription of a book so recent that it was still on the Best Seller’s list. The inscription read, “To the man who never loved me enough to give me his name.”
A marked contrast to Kit’s warm feelings for mum. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2022
Simanaitis Says 
I read several books at a time, and unfortunately am at an age when too many good friends are featured in the obits. Going to the funerals, you’re often given a small card with a photo and the person’s highlights. I find these make perfect bookmarks.
I match them to the books that I’m reading, and they keep reminding me of that dear person and our shared interests.