Good Night Irene Serendipity is having a co-worker who is a bibliophile with similar tastes to mine. I may be more eclectic than she is in reading tastes, but then, she is a rabid Bruins fan whereas I vaguely acknowledge that hockey exists, so maybe we really are even.

Recently she purged her library (or tried to, anyway) in preparation for an upcoming move. She showed me several bags of books to consider. One very full bag came home with me. The rest were duplicates of my own stash…but hers were HARDCOVER. I lust for hardback books. I tend to treat them better than paperbacks .

How did we get to discussing authors? I am so bad at remembering names (including authors, unfortunately – I can scan the beginning and end text and recall the intervening material, but usually cannot remember who wrote it) that I can’t recall how it came about that she suggested a new author, and even proffered an initial entry novel in paperback for me to try.

She has not seen “my” library of paperbacks. She might have reconsidered the loan if she had. I cavalierly dog-ear pages to hold my place. I had to forcibly remind myself that it was *not* okay to do that with her paperback.

I returned the book this morning, dog-ear free.