But mostly, for this:
A Canadian woman's house is collapsing under the weight of the 350,000 books she rescued from a neighbour who was planning to burn them after her bibliophile husband died.
Thirty tonnes of books later, she realised what she had let herself in for. From How-To manuals to a 1907 first edition of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Two Bad Mice, Shakespeare to textbooks, the collection was so large the couple had to buy a small house and install it on their land to store the books, which fill 7,500 boxes.
I have a colleague who had to sell a third of his books because they'd caused structural damage to his house. Another friend has 15,000 musty tomes which - following the collapse of his roof, ceilings and wiring - actually provide his only shelter. He's the only academic for whom it's literally true that books have put a roof over his head.
I wouldn't want 350,000 books. OK, I would, but it would be for reasons of selfish pride. One could never read more than a fraction. Instead, I'd just enjoy sitting amongst them. I like the smell of old books, the way they look, their insulating qualities. But ownership is a petty achievement really.
