I love libraries. And I really love personal libraries. They’re at once far-reaching and self-contained. These collections reflect an obsession, a worldview and, of course, a passion for books and reading. There’s something very satisfying when you need to refer to a letter somebody wrote, a memorable passage, even an entire chapter, and the book in question is right there on your shelf. This is a minor literary miracle.
We don’t need to get into why you couldn’t remember the fact in the first place. But let’s agree that some le Carré novels really are inscrutable. Incidentally, whoever is responsible for the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Wikipedia page is really doing the Lord’s work. (The people who painstakingly catalog their favorite works online are a discussion for another time.)
But there are more books than can fit in a room and sometimes what you need is not at hand. I’m in Wisconsin where I have a certain number of books by American authors (as seems correct here) and of course on fishing and outdoor life. But it’s a limited collection by design. Now it turns out I have to write a magazine story on short deadline that requires, by my standards, a fair amount of research. And the modern world has visited me here at my cabin in a good way.
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