Best Novels of the Western World

How many times in my life have I thought to myself, "This is the best book I've ever read!" And then, later, "No, that one wasn't, but this one is."

A few days ago I saw Kim lying in a pile I had brought up from the basement, and picked it up. All I remembered about it was the movie with Errol Flynn, and that little boy who called Mahbub Ali "Muhboobly;" apparently I had never read the book. It has Jenny's notes in it. It was hard to read, the print being so tiny and the pages so age-darkened. About a third of the way through it, I found it on free Kindle, and although easier on myopic eyesight, it was aggravating, with all the misspelled words and missing parts. I had to peer into the paperback many times to make sense of garbled passages on Kindle. I finally finished reading it this morning.

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If anybody ever tells you that Rudyard Kipling was not a serious writer, just read Kim. If you remember it from the movie and think you wouldn't like the book, be assured that Kim doesn't remain a little boy all the way through. And Mahbub wasn't anything like Errol Flynn. I'm going to look for a newer edition with larger type, so I can re-read it whenever I want to.