each really tells a story

I sifted through box after box of books. Some I remembered well, relating to them as old friends. Some made me scratch my head and wonder why I'd saved them. Some were obviously in such poor condition that even a library wouldn't have any interest in them. Often the main question became "perhaps nobody else has a copy of this book, perhaps, even though it was a great read, it's been forgotten - don't I have a responsibility to save it?"

But even when it seemed that the answer to this question was that I couldn't throw out a particular book, for many of them it still didn't make sense to hold on to them. It was clear that I was never going to read them again - not only those that were in such poor condition that they couldn't be read, but even those that might still have a place on a shelf. And simply the quantity of them was almost a bit shocking.


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