One of the first hardcover books I remember truly loving (that wasn’t a children’s classic) was an Erma Bombeck lifted from my mother’s bookshelf.  I was about 10 years old when I read the book – yes, I was a very mature child – but there was something about the dry wit in Erma Bombeck’s writing that I  just “got”. I was ten, so it wasn’t that I was necessarily relating to the content, particularly when her mentality towards housework was such was a direct opposite of my mother’s own style; I mean, for a child whose early morning directive was “you can be late for school before you leave…