To many of us—regardless of our age in reading years—a book will always be a mysteriously charged presence. Even unopened, it rekindles a sense of anticipation we first experienced in childhood and thankfully never outgrew. And once activated, it can eclipse the present with the turn of each page, as a story, real or imagined, takes hold. There are those, however, for whom the book as object, artifact or acquisition provides a very different thrill, often bordering on obsession. They are the collectors—seekers and sages of the printed page who can (and will) tell you all you want to know (and more) about the marbling of endpapers, the tooling of leather, the alchemies of font. Or who, on a less rarified level, can’t resist adding yet another volume to their teetering pile.
