On Mail

For whatever reason, I have a sick obsession with hard cover books. I don't know what it is about them that I love. Maybe it's because they seem almost indestructible with their tough exterior. Maybe I think they're the "hardasses" of the literary world. Paperbacks can get torn, ruffled, bent, tattered. But hardcovers, well, they're a whole different beast.

I've been on a kick of collecting some of my favorite books in hard cover. I've been trolling the local used book store to seize up their collection, I've been scanning Amazon for the best deals. Even though I've read these books at least a few times each, I still get excited about having them, about reading them again at some point. There's something about buying a used book that's in good condition. A used book sort of tells you two stories, the one that's printed on the pages, and the one that its condition will grant you.

I'm sort of a snob about buying used books though. The dust jacket has to be in pretty decent condition, the pages have to be just right, and the binding absolutely cannot be broken. My two most recent acquisitions were The Shining and Interview with the Vampire. Enclosed in this mail parcel was The Shining.

I still need a few more books to round out my "favorites" collection, I do still need to first four Dexter books for instance. After that, I might just continue to troll the used book stores for other books by my favorite authors.