IN 1976, Arthur Houghton Jr. paid US$150,000 for a book. Not just any book, but a 1543 presentation copy of Nicolaus Copernicus’ “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.”
Houghton spent 40 years collecting rare books, something he could afford to do, being the heir to the Steuben glass empire. A decade before his death, however, he decided to sell his personal collection instead of donating it to the rare books and manuscripts library in Harvard University that bears his name. No one can say for sure how many of his priceless books he had read.
Two of the most precious books in my collection date back to 1966 and are nowhere near as valuable as any of Houghton’s titles. Their value is private. One is the essay collection “Edge of Awareness,” which my father Ely bought in 1981 for P5.95, which is about P84 once adjusted for inflation. The other book is “The World’s Ten Greatest Novels” according to the novelist W. Somerset Maugham, which, judging from a stamp on the flyleaf, my father borrowed from the DYRF library but never returned.
Book lovers can be a strange and acquisitive lot. So it wasn’t a surprise to hear that last Thursday, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale attracted so many readers to its preview day that some ended up waiting in line for two or more hours just to pay for their newfound treasures. If you’ve ever done inconvenient or impractical things in pursuit of books, know this: reader, you are not alone.
Some books summon specific memories, which makes them more special. I still remember how it felt to find one of my favorite books in the National Book Store branch on Gen. Maxilom Ave. one afternoon in February 1999. It was during one of these blowouts NBS sometimes organizes, which readers in search of bargains rarely miss. I was hugging a coffee table book of Dorothea Lange’s photos (P29!) when I saw a hardcover edition of Philip Roth’s “Patrimony,” his memoir about his father’s illness and death. The price on the sticker? P10. (I had to ask one of the sales staff if that wasn’t a mistake.) When the American novelist died earlier this year, that book was the first thing I picked up upon reaching home. It ends this way: “You must not forget everything.”
I remember the few books I’ve lost to forgetful borrowers, but no reader was to blame for the worst case of book loss I’ve seen. It was in 1990, and typhoon Ruping had just battered Cebu. The winds carried away a few galvanized iron sheets from our roof, and the rain dripped through our living room ceiling, drenching an entire bookcase of my mother’s Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. I remember my mother trying to dry her books out on the lawn on the first sunny day after that storm, but by then the books had swollen and started to smell vaguely of urine.
That loss didn’t stop her from buying books or reading, of course. Facebook and Twitter posts about last Thursday’s long lines kept us away from the sale, but she has made a couple of requests—a good dictionary, because the family’s copy has grown dated, and perhaps a few Ken Follett titles she doesn’t yet have.
Except when young children are involved, reading is a solitary pleasure. But when a loved one shares your love of books and reading, you gain so many other moments of bliss. “To read together is symbolic of being able to share our true selves without shame, embarrassment or the need to perform,” Alain de Botton wrote. And buying a beloved a book (or three, or five) is much like giving them the gifts of empathy and escape.
(For more on Houghton and other collectors, try Nicholas Baker’s “A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books.”)