If you are a bibliophile (a lover of books) then you'll very much enjoy this essay in Comment by Mark Bertrand who sounds like a biblioaddict. Bertrand begins his tale this way:
Before the package from Amazon UK reached my doorstep, someone had given it a good kicking. The corners dimpled inward and a jagged gash ran like a scar down one side of the box, giving the cardboard a battered, sinister air.
I probably yelped at the sight. I don't remember. It all happened so quickly. I hoisted the package and moved it inside to the dining room table, then rummaged around for a knife to undo its taped edges. I peeled back the damaged layers, afraid of what I might find, only to breathe a sigh of relief upon discovering the contents safely wrapped in a protective sheen of plastic.
About this time, my wife came in, arms crossed, shaking her head at my anxiety.
"We have thousands of books already," she said. "The walls are lined with them. But you still had to order more."
When I lifted my new treasure out of the box, she rolled her eyes. But I paid no attention.
Instead, I was mesmerized by the orange slipcase, about a foot and a half long, and the row of tiny paperbacks contained within it, their spines arranged by color in a spectrum that ran from blue to orange. Seventy slender volumes, printed in honor of Penguin's seventy years in publishing, but to me they represented more than a milestone. This set was the answer to a baffling conundrum, a problem that had kept me up at night. This was my solution. This was my Godsend.
This was my summer reading.
If you love books you'll want to read the entire piece, nodding the while and thinking "That's me he's talking about."
RLC
