'A Collection of Good Books'

“It is only about the contents of a book that I care, not its shape, its date, or the number on its flyleaves.” Spoken like a reader, not a parvenu accumulating vogueish titles as though they were bowling trophies. Books as fashion statement or evidence of “interleckchul” (Flannery O’Connor’s spelling) status are comically pretentious. Aldous Huxley published his essay “If My Library Burned…