Suspended Sequel by Andy Scheer

Thanks to a Christmas present from my son, I can now read the sequel to a book I first read in 1964.

Living in a suburb of Detroit, I'd taken several school field trips to the Henry Ford Museum and had been impressed with its collection of antique autos. So when my teacher distributed order sheets for paperbacks from Scholastic, I was primed for Kings of the Road by Ken W. Purdy.

I don't remember if I had to raid my Yogi Bear bank for the full cover price of seventy-five cents (this was when quarters were still silver). Regardless, it was priceless. Over the next decade I reread it countless times.

Its twenty chapters (most adapted from magazine articles) opened me to the world of such classic automobiles as Bugatti, Mercer, Stutz, Cord, and Duesenberg (origin of the phrase “it's a Duesey”). Decades later I'm still traveling to classic car museums. More important, I'm still reading voraciously--and helping other writers master the art of dynamic prose.

My copy of Kings of the Road, printed in 1963 on cheap paper, is too fragile for me to revisit its pages. But I knew hardcover versions on better paper were available online. So I passed the hint before Christmas.

Published in hardcover in 1972, Ken Purdy's Book of Automobiles promises to pick up where Kings of the Road left off. After nearly fifty years, I'm eager to resume the journey.

Velveteen Books by Andy Scheer

Sometimes the marks of a book's influence are obvious. Like the 1982 19th printing of Sunset Favorite Recipes my wife used Thanksgiving morning.

Nearly thirty years ago, when we were newlyweds, my parents had given us the book. Now the covers are held together with tape, the corners are frayed, and the pages are covered with thirty years of spills from helping feed four generations of family and countless guests around our table.

As the Christmas season begins, I think of two other gifts of milestone books. Though less worn, they influenced me deeply.

Christmas morning when I was ten, I unwrapped a hardcover edition of Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdal. Through multiple re-readings, this epic true adventure baptized my imagination with the power of narrative nonfiction—and awakened the idea that someday I might also write.

Christmas morning three years later, I unwrapped another hardcover treasure: the current Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. It contained nearly every word I'd need through high school, college, seminary, and my work as a professional writer. In the past decade I've replaced it with a more recent edition, but the tradition remains unbroken. (With its thumb tabs, I find it as easy to use as an online dictionary. But more dangerous, as each page is filled with distracting readings about other words.)

No wonder that when I think of giving a lasting gift, I often think of books.