Thursday, October 07, 2010
On Book Collecting
I own a lot of books. But I've never really thought of this as collecting; it's just my version of living. But every now and then--like today when it occurred to me that I own signed copies of things by three Nobel Prize winners (Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, and the latest Mario Vargas Llosa)--that I could have a focused collection. Maybe that would be fun. But maybe it would just be shopping. I don't know. Just thinking about it I'm suddenly regretting missed opportunities to get Doris Lessing, Seamus Heaney and Kenzaburo Oe to sign things for the collection I could have had. I think it would just give me anxiety. Do you collect?
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2 comments:
I collect old books. I love how old hardback books had beautiful spines and how they smell so lovely. My goal is to have a library similar to the one in Beauty and the Beast--although I am well aware that this would require my living in an old mansion or estate which I'm quite confident will never happen. The Ikea version of this library, which includes the ladder, would suffice. Essentially, I want my office to smell like a used bookstore.
I have quite a few signed books which mean the world to me (Judy Blume, Alice McDermott, Toni Morrison, JC Oates, Ann Beattie, Salman Rushdie, Bob Shacochis, Ron Hansen, and Amy Bloom, to name a few), but I "collected" a first edition signed House of Mirth which is my favorite treasure. My dream is to find a first edition signed Lolita...
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