My high school friend Kim was inspired by Bob to write me the following. Kim and I served on the board of the school literary magazine. Her thoughtfulness and erudition were always appreciated then. And they still are.
"I feel a bond with your book premise -- I work third shift at a college library, where one of my nightly routines is to prepare/pack books for morning shipment for an interlibrary lending consortium the school belongs to. I have a tendency to "anthropomorphize" my charges (strange things happen to the mind when you're working alone on the third shift). I package them carefully (of course) so that they don't become bruised (bent, torn or mutilated) in transit, but beyond that I like to imagine I'm preparing them for a grand expedition.
"Sometimes books that belong to our library get misshelved at the borrowing library and remain on the borrower's shelves for months, even years. I correspond with the partners in the exchange program to follow up on missing books, and when they apologize for misshelving/misplacing a book, I absolve them by inventing stories about the books taking a vacation to visit their friends or taking a sabbatical to do research at the other library. It's exciting to know that you have spent so much time thinking about the secret life of books. I wish you and Bob the Book much success.
"I feel a bond with your book premise -- I work third shift at a college library, where one of my nightly routines is to prepare/pack books for morning shipment for an interlibrary lending consortium the school belongs to. I have a tendency to "anthropomorphize" my charges (strange things happen to the mind when you're working alone on the third shift). I package them carefully (of course) so that they don't become bruised (bent, torn or mutilated) in transit, but beyond that I like to imagine I'm preparing them for a grand expedition.
"Sometimes books that belong to our library get misshelved at the borrowing library and remain on the borrower's shelves for months, even years. I correspond with the partners in the exchange program to follow up on missing books, and when they apologize for misshelving/misplacing a book, I absolve them by inventing stories about the books taking a vacation to visit their friends or taking a sabbatical to do research at the other library. It's exciting to know that you have spent so much time thinking about the secret life of books. I wish you and Bob the Book much success.
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