Dear John:
Why collect books?
John replies:
Set aside the obvious: a safe investment; appreciating asset; something to leave the kids; a reasonable addiction; interior designers think they look good on your shelves.
Collecting is an urge indigenous to the human species. Its maturation may be from beanie babies or action figures, growing to coins or stamps, and ending up with fine art or books. But books are unique in that they offer more than appearance . . . they tell stories, stories that enrich our lives. Collectors almost always read first, collect later, and as they discover a character or series that resonates with them they get passionate about completion. A complete collection by any definition is the ultimate objective. After all, who can call a collection of Michael Connelly book's that is missing Black Echo complete? Or, Grafton without A is For Alibi? Dan Brown's Digital Fortress?
It is that one rare or elusive title that makes a collection complete, valuable. If you find an author to your liking, and if you are a collector, you will want everything they have in print. Guaranteed!
So be on the look out for . . .
10,000 BCE First gardening book, Adam's Landscaping the Classic Mespotatamian Way: Highlighting Unusual Trees; 9999 BCE First recovery-book, Eve's Picking Yourself Up After the Fall; 3600 BCE First Diet Book, Methuselah's The 900-Year Cholesterol Diet: It's Not What You Eat, It's How Long You Eat It; 700 BCE reissue of Leviticus: Eat Right or Die; 335 BCE Aristotle's Big Book of Athenian Lists; 300 BCE What Color Is your Parabola by Euclid; 43 BCE Et Me, Caesar by Brutus; 144 AD Ptolemy's Why the Sun Comes Up in the Morning.*
"There's no place like books."
*Attribution to Biblioholism by Tom Raabe
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