The Geography of Romance
One of the daily Washington Post editions last week had an article about people who horde books. Yeah, the writer used a nicer title. Something about bibliomaniacs. Sounds kind of pathological. The quote goes:
Washington, with its affluent and educated populace, is a natural habitat for bibliomaniacs, defined by the late British author Sir Hugh Walpole as those “to whom books are like bottles of whiskey to the inebriate, to whom anything that is between covers has a sort of intoxicating savour.”
You may think this sounds like an excuse. It’s really more of a geography lesson. Or, at least, I think that’s the author’s point. She points out that Washington ranked 4th last year in book sales behind New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley. Not too shabby. Maybe not a valid excuse for messy home offices and falling bookshelves, but an explanation.
