The Cranky Old Reader

To be honest, this was sort of a "desperation" book; one of many that I've picked up from the three for a dollar room at the Boston Book Annex, which is down the street.At three for a buck I can pick up all sorts of odd books that I wouldn't normally try. The Twain book doesn't really fall into that category, of course; I've read a fair amount of Twain. But the thing about this edition was that it was over 600 pages long with small type; it was very compact.Anyway, I grabbed the Twain collection (which also includes short stand-alone fiction taken from within longer novels and non-fiction books) because it was long, not too big (the paper is extremely thin and delicate), and would take a long time to read. I expected that it might be a little dull. Twain's language has dated a bit, after all. But the old boy has life in him yet. I laughed out loud - loudly - more than once, and one story got me so choked up that I spent half an hour fighting back tears. Yes, I'm a big sap. No, I'm not going to tell you which story. I was sorry when I came to the end of the book. It won't be long before I read it again.