...A Literary Life, Perused
When it comes time to purge books, it’s best to do so quickly with as little thought as plucking wilted lettuce from the bottom of a refrigerator. To stop and consider the significance of abandoning those books is, nearly always, to confront our forfeited ambitions. Like giving away the guitar we never learned to play, the stethoscope from the aborted career in medicine, or the tennis racket after our knees have given out, getting rid of books is like closing doors. With the exception of a quixotic few for whom trimming a collection could be a step toward recovery from bibliophilia, allowing the used bookseller to come raid the shelf is surrender, a resignation that we’ll never again find inspiration, solace or even escape in those pages.
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