It could be worse; I could have addiction issues with heroin or gambling.  Instead I am afflicted with a cookie habit and Biblophilia.  I have reduced the cookie bingeing to reasonable levels – I was at Santa-level consumption during the holidays – and I have been using the library more instead of haunting bookshops and trolling Amazon.  That said, the Seattle Public library bi-annual book sale always does me in.  Last year, I bought a full set of 1911 Encyclopedia Britannicas and missed a complete set of Harvard Classics by 20 minutes.  This year I went to buy 4 novels and see what their mountaineering/sailing lit selection was like…

Crap.  I left the sale with 3 boxes and a grocery sack of books and Stamps-With-Foot left with a bag full as well.  I got some GREAT stuff:  a first edition (signed) of Red Sky in Mourning, a KILLER 2 volume micro print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Ed Veisturs’ K2 book with a spotless dust jacket, some fiction I HAD to have, and a cloth bound complete Britannica Great Books set.  We are now full to the brim and if one more book comes in, I will have to build some new shelves.  We are planning on a large book case/Murphy-bed combo for the office, but that is years away and at this rate it will be full on the first day it goes up.