I've been a book collector since I was young, since I was a kid.
Raised in a house filled with old books, I'm drawn to them: the dust jackets that call out a historical moment, the marbled boards, the words pressed into the page with movable type.
I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.
There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.
The year after I graduated college I had a job in a library. When people underlined passages in the library books, or made notes in the margins, the books were sent to me. I erased the lines and the notes. Yes, that was my job.
Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit.
From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story.
