ON.ONE of my recent bookstore forays, I was at- tracted by a modest cover with the title Eccentric Lives & Peculiar Notions. By Barbara Black Contributing Writer Eccentricity being one of my long-term goals, | eagerly seized the book and paid the $4.99 price. I was particularly interested in the chapter called “Bibliomaniacs,’? which revealed the curious, often callous, ” behavior exhibited by people obsessed with accumulating | *. books; manuscripts, pamphlets | and any scrap of paper covered ’ with words. It is no irony, dear reader, that I discovered this bargain oddity: while engaged in one of my favorite pastimes — book grazing. Roaming the aisles in search of a good read needn’t be considered aberrant —- unless one is a book reviewer and already has literature enough to fill in Burrard [nlet. . Once home with my literary treasure, | wove my way through. . the stacks of review books lining the hallway to my reading room. I placed my coffee mug on the , glossy green cover trumpeting the met ’ splendars of Canada. Actually, this was the top of an “ingenious table | had constructed following a revelation about cof- =, fee-table books. Namely, that .. they were not meant to be on cof- fee tables but to constitute the ‘ coffee table itself: , ! “To this end, I have ably built -- two.end tables in the living room . entirely of volumes on B.C. log- | “ging -history and a quaint tele- ‘phone table of tomes on the lives ‘of French Impressionist painters. : ~ They had the advantage of being - very sturdy, i t t i i { 44 / have ably built two end tables in the living room entirely of volumes on B.C: logging . history... 99 ! Having navigated the course to my room, | settled in my overstuffed armchair, built entire- ly of self-published, books on obscure, often indeterminate sub- jects. These works were invariably fat and printed on soft, cheap paper which made them ideal for seat cushions and armrests. Opening my new book with the utmost reverence, | began to read about the life of @ Parisian <1 bibliomaniac named Monsieur Boulard. _ So enamored was ‘this man of - books that in the course of his lifetime he accumulated over 6&)0,000.. His house was so overloaded that it began to col- lapse under the weight of his col- lection, : Fortunately, the clever-minded Boulard saw a quick solution to - this impending disaster: he bought six more houses. One of the most famous of bibliomaniacs was one Richard Heber. Unlike other. ' _ bibliomaniacs, says the author, “Heber actually read some of the _.works he collected. liegt < His passion, however, was in- discriminate and his collection described as ‘‘omnigenous.”’ As the room had grown rather chilly during my ree iding, | got up to stoke the fire. My house is never wanting for a warm fire, since J have a never-ending supply of what I call cookbook kindling. These are lovely, large books called Thai Cooking Made Easy and 110 Recipes for Filo Pastry with large, casy-to-rip-out pages which when burned emit rich blues and oranges from the delicious color photos. ‘Tam almost certain that some pages give off pleasant food odors when burning. . 1 was just settling back into “Bibliomaniaes,’’ absorbing the life of Thomas Phillips, who fore ed his family to five like misers in a few dilapidated rooms, when there was a tap-tapping at the window, ‘It was the pesky Stellar’s Jay whom I had nicknamed Edgar.. Seemingly aztracted by some shiny object, perhaps the metal binding ona book, this rapacious bird would sit onthe sill and peck at the window: He had a foathsome collection _of glossy, shiny trinkets, most of which he had scrounged from my property or stolen on the wing, His presevee was always unset- ~tling, and the only way to get rid of him was to bold up to the window illustrations from ‘The Compleat Taxidermist. Having rid myself ofthe West Coast magzie, | happily finished the chapter of my new book, I was occupied the rest of the day establishing a path to the front door to accommodate a visitor who insisted on showing 2s Me some musty Manuscripts she. had acquired. Unfortunately, the. appointment was binding. Barbara Black is a Victoria freelance writer. Wright also suilty. of gobbledygook Dear Editor: : “VY don’t. believe I have. ever ‘imagined a scenario where I might find. myself. agreeing with. our MLA for North Vancouver: David Schreck;; however,’ Eurekal, the time has come (sort of). Noel Wright’s column of Jan. 6 '*(“Legalese: can’t hide ..: Infants . Act’’) » states:” “‘Gobbledygook is’ the ‘basic : tool of lawmakers — _ none more’ skilled in its use than New Democrats...’’. : “TE think Wright must ‘lay down “his false. modesty, and, acknowl- ‘edge