Books have history.

A vice of mine is purchasing hard cover books. I don’t buy paperback books. I buy hard cover books. This is a habit of long standing and would be the last thing I would give up before shelter and food.

Friends sometimes give me their books, if they need the room. It is fun to see what I end up with. One time by organizing what I had, I discovered I had two books written by Colon Powell. I knew I hadn’t bought them, but there I was with two of his books.

A friend recently gave me three books. They were very old. Her mother had died and these were in her things. There were inscriptions in two of them but my friend said the names were not familiar. This makes me wonder, did her mother purchase these at a tag sale or had a friend given them to her.

I have very few books with inscriptions. In books that were given to me as gifts there’s sometimes a note of who gave the gift with the date. There’s a couple signed by the author when I had a bookstore as a client. These days I only write inside the front cover the date I finished reading them for the first time.