If money were no object, what one book would you most like to add to your private library?
This writer has posed that question to a great many book collectors over the past four+ decades. The answers received to this writer's question, though, may surprise you. When the choice comes down to a single book, the book chosen is almost never a rare or expensive title. Rather, it's usually a book with exceptionally strong sentimental value.
For a collector in Texas, for example, it was a well-worn copy of The Poky Little Puppy. It was the first book the collector had ever managed to read entirely by himself. He lost the book when he moved to New York to attend college.
For a collector in Georgia, it was a Bible which had been in her family since before the Civil War. It wasn't theology, though, that drove this collector's desire. The first few blank leaves in that Bible contained a manuscript family tree that went back almost ten generations. The book was lost during a flood several decades ago.
For a collector in Maine, it was a tattered paperback reprint of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The collector's father was a workaholic, who relaxed by rebuilding motorcycles. It was the only book the collector could ever recall his father reading for pleasure. After his father died, the collector's mother sold the book (for a nickel) at a yard sale.
If money were no object, what one book would you most like to add to your private library...?
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