COLLECTING BOOKS

BOOK COLLECTING is certainly an addiction. At least it is hard to find a rational explanation for the extreme covetousness with which the collector regards all reading‐matter that even remotely interests him. Take me, for instance. I am addicted to second‐hand bookshops, and I believe this is a common form of the ailment. As one after another closes down, so the frenzy of my addiction mounts. A tour of a town's booksellers is the only form of tourism that I can tolerate; far from exhausting or boring me, the eternal optimism of the search seems to generate unlimited energy. My eyes are the sharper for peering into the gloom of remote corners and my back the stronger for stooping under the low ceilings of musty basements. The buying of new books rouses in me nothing like the same enthusiasm.