Confessions of a Book Addict

This essay by Michael Dirda in The American Scholar will strike a nerve with many readers of this blog. An excerpt:

Instead I drove toward Second Story Books in Dupont Circle and spent 15 minutes looking for a place to park. I then scouted the offerings ($3 each) on the bookstore’s sidewalk shelves and turned up a nice first of The Panic Hand, a collection of Jonathan Carroll’s elegant and eerie short stories. Long ago, when I reviewed one of his early novels—Sleeping in Flame—I described it as a cross between Weird Tales and Vanity Fair.

At which point, I certainly should have plunked down my $3, taken my purchase, and gone home.

[HT: Arts & Letters Daily]