“Prisoner of Shelves”
An excellent (though very light) way to end the collection.
Hitchens laments about how “bibliomania cripples my…life”. In his last
paragraph he writes, “Some kind friends argue for a cull, to create more space
and to provide an incentive to organize. All right, but I can’t throw out a
book that has been with me for any length of time and thus acquired sentimental
value, or that has been written by a friend, or that has been signed or
inscribed by its author. I also can’t part with one that might conceivably come
in handy as a work of reference, however obscure.” I know how he feels.
Hitchens with his books:
This essay has his best quote (should have been the tile to
the collection), “But the thing is, you never know.”
New learning: Bruce Chatwin has a novel titled Utz, …just
like the potato chip company!...as the novel takes place in cold war
Czechoslovakia, I don’t think there’s any relation.
New word: Porzellankrankheit = mania for porcelain
acquisition
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