{"id":106,"date":"2006-06-06T19:51:48","date_gmt":"2006-06-06T19:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=106"},"modified":"2010-08-14T15:40:33","modified_gmt":"2010-08-14T15:40:33","slug":"just-lock-me-up-and-throw-away-the-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/just-lock-me-up-and-throw-away-the-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Just lock me up and throw away the key!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know I have a serious book addiction.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

My friends and family\u00a0know I have a serious book addiction.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

So I don’t know why it should surprise anyone when I behave like a bibliophile out of control.\u00a0 (Is that redundant?)<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Just last\u00a0week I had a huge book sale.\u00a0 I cleared out\u00a0forty (count them\u201440!) boxes of books from my home office and bookshelves.\u00a0 (More on the sale later.)\u00a0 I made over $1,000, and I’ve been reveling in all the freed-up floor space in my office and a little bit of shelf space throughout the house.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

So what did I do today? <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

While innocently entering the library for a little quiet study time, I uncontrollably detoured through the Friends of the Library book sale room.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m only slightly ashamed to admit that I bought\u00a0replacements for\u00a0two books I sold just\u00a0four days ago\u2014Daniel Boorstin’s two-volume Landmark History of the American People<\/em>.\u00a0 The ones I sold (for $4.00 each) were ex-library copies in fairly poor condition with badly wrinkled bindings.\u00a0 But the ones in the library sale room were privately owned, and they were in beautiful condition with dust jackets<\/span>.\u00a0 The jacket copy confirmed that these were indeed Landmark Giants (which I had merely suspected before), and I’m still trying to complete my Landmark collection, so what could I do?\u00a0 (Hey, they were priced at $2.00 and $4.50, so I still came out ahead, right?)<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

If the story stopped there, it could be laughed off as merely a passing folly.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the plot thickens.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>As I was heading out the door, I spotted a thirty-volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em> (Macropedia and<\/span> Micropedia, copyright 1981), in pristine condition . . .\u00a0for a paltry $20!!<\/span><\/p>\n

Gulp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I ask you\u2014could any bibliophile worthy of the name reasonably<\/span> be expected to walk off and leave those books sitting there?<\/span><\/p>\n

Exactly.<\/span><\/p>\n

It took\u00a0four\u00a0trips to haul them all to the car (note to self:\u00a0 bring strong teenage son next time I acquire\u00a0thirty large, heavy books) . . . and I didn’t even take the\u00a0seventeen Britannica yearbooks, stored in the library’s garage, that were included in the price.\u00a0 I told the lady I’d have to come back for them another day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Huffing and puffing after all that book-hauling in the Mississippi June heat, I called\u00a0Rachel, a dear friend and fellow bookjunkie,\u00a0to confess.<\/span><\/p>\n

“But don’t you already have a set of encyclopedias?” she\u00a0inquired incredulously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Er, exactly how is that relevant?\u00a0 A confirmed bibliophile should know better than to ask such a preposterous question!<\/span><\/p>\n

Get this\u2014while choking back gales of laughter, she told me, “Mary Jo, you’re like a wino!\u00a0 You get a little money and you go right back and buy more books!”<\/span><\/p>\n

A wino<\/span>?!?\u00a0 I’m outraged!<\/span><\/p>\n

In my own defense, I quote Erasmus: <\/span><\/p>\n

“When I get a little money, I buy books; <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

and if any is left, <\/span><\/em>I buy food and clothes.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nuff said.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure Rachel is convinced, though, so if I don’t blog for a while, you’ll know the men in\u00a0white coats have hauled me away for emergency bibliotherapy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Shuddering at the thought of detoxing from books . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Jo Tate<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I have a serious book addiction. My friends and family\u00a0know I have a serious book addiction. So I don’t know why it should surprise anyone when I behave like a bibliophile out of control.\u00a0 (Is that redundant?) Just last\u00a0week I had a huge book sale.\u00a0 I cleared out\u00a0forty (count them\u201440!) boxes of books … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}