The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 13, March 26, 2006, Article 32

BIBLIOPHILES FILL HOMES TO THE BRIM

John Kraljevich forwarded this article from the Washington
Post about the plight of bibliophiles running out of room to
store their libraries:

"But when he moved to a one-bedroom Dupont Circle apartment
with a partner who collects large art and architecture books,
Ramponi had to exile those cherished culinary texts to a pair
of rented storage units several blocks away.

Since 2002, he has spent more than $5,000 to keep them there,
which "may be more than they are all worth," he concedes. "But
there is a sentimental attachment and I associate them with
places I've been, people I know."

"Then there is the Georgetown widow who requests anonymity to
keep her literary "addiction" secret. She admits she once
seriously considered buying and moving into the house next door,
leaving her mushrooming book collection at the old address.
Ultimately she could not justify carrying two mortgages, even
though her own living space has been reduced to narrow paths
winding past groaning shelves and grocery sacks filled with
secondhand books.

"You think if you keep buying books you will never die until
you've read them all," she says. "Of course, that's absurd."

"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."

To read the entire article, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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