Paperbacks in very good condition

• Westerns!
  
• Mysteries
• General Fiction

100 years ago, a young Englishman was in trouble.  He had achieved an early and unexpected success touring the United States as part of a traveling comedic vaudeville company, only to sink back into oblivion upon his return to England.  He was therefore delighted when they invited him to join them on a second American tour.

Unfortunately, the second tour was something of a disaster.  Everyone got sick, the audiences this time around were not particularly moved to mirth and by the middle of 1913 our young Englishman was ready for something different.

That something came in the form of a telegram, asking him to consider moving to the rough-and-tumble wild west of a place called California, to become a part of a moving pictures company.

Now, our young man was less than thrilled -- he knew the company, and considered their brand of humor too crude.  Still, a job was a job, and he was ready for a change.  He signed a contract in July and by the end of 1913 had relocated to Southern California--

Only to find that the head of the company thought he looked too young...

At any rate, our young man persuaded the skeptical boss to give him a chance, which is a good thing, as one would be hard pressed to imagine what the world would have been like without the influence of Charlie Chaplin!

This year is also a milestone for Hollywood in general, as the first feature length movie to be filmed in Hollywood, "The Squaw Man", was made in 1913.  As mentioned in a previous column, parts of it were shot in the docks of San Pedro, cementing the South Bay's ties to Hollywood from the very beginning.

In other arenas, 1913 saw the premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in Paris, which so galvanized the attendees that a full scale riot broke out!

However, I have saved the most significant for last - an innovation that would transform the way we looked at newspapers and periodicals forever more...

For one century ago, in 1913, the Crossword Puzzle was invented.