I recently received a copy of the London Review of Books.

It must be a sample copy, I thought.  Only there were no subscription cards inside.

I scanned the Table of Contents and turned to Jenni Diski’s “Doris and Me,” an engrossing essay about her life as a teenager at Doris Lessing’s house.

And then I forgot all about it.

Yesterday a second issue  arrived.

The label on the plastic wrapper says I have a three-year subscription.

Very mysterious.

Oddly, it is addressed to me under my nickname, not my formal “subscription” name.

“Does it have anything to do with your blog?”  my husband teased me.

I burst out laughing.

The situation reminds me of the plot of the Nancy Drew book, Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, which I read when I was nine.

On the opening page the postman brings a letter.

Hello, Nancy,” he said. “…Lots of letters today. There’s one in the bottom of my bag for you. It was sent air mail from London, England.”

The  letter says Nancy is an heiress, only it turns out another Nancy Drew is the heiress.  So maybe I’m getting an LRB that is supposed to go to another me?

Since it first arrived a few weeks ago, I have been bombarded with offers of subscriptions to book review publications.

The TLS wants me to subscribe. I already do.

Poets & Writers offered me a deal and enclosed a gift of the tinest notepad in existence.

The New York Review of Books would like to pile up unread on our porch.

What would Nancy Drew do?

I’m sure there would be phone calls, letters, interviews, instagrams (whatever instagrams are).

I’ll just read the LRB instead.