Robin Marantz Henig

The music that was popular in your youth seems to be the music you recall most vividly - and most nostalgically - for the rest of your life. But so is the music that was popular in your parents' youth.

I was raised on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. Something about this genre - hard-boiled-private-eye-with-heart-of-gold - never failed to take me away from whatever difficulties haunted my daily world to a wonderful land where I was no more than an enthralled spectator.