A happy accident, maybe

I'm in the middle of January working madness, and on an idle break just then I was blithely browsing through Amazon book reviews, as I often do because I love them for the stories they reveal about people:

This review is from: Complete Poems and Major Prose: John Milton (Hardcover)

Coming from someone who was so frugal that my choice of major in college was influenced by the fact I could find most required reading for a dual degree in philosophy and English literature in the library rather than pay my hard earned money for books that were not worthy ... this is my strongest possible recommendation: This was one of the few texts I actually shelled out money for in college without regret and would even purchase AGAIN! ( My copy was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel.)

I don't know why, but I love this review: The frugality! The hurricane! I loved it so much that I clicked the 'One-Click Shopping' button and suddenly realised I had bought the $75 hardback copy of this book in one click. I would have loved to have bought something else with that money instead (A NICE NEW OLD DRESS), but it's not to be, and now I understand that it never will be. Because I have a problem. I buy thousand-page books that are too heavy to carry in my bag, that have no hope of ever fitting into the little book holder thing on the cross-trainer at the gym, that are destined to always live without me in someone else's home because I may never own my own, and I know exactly why I do it. I do it because possessing books is a comfort. And sometimes I think that surely there must be cheaper and less burdensome ways to find comfort in this world (whiskey, gourmet food, a spouse) but still, I will always crave books just to have them.

I know it's not a remarkable or new disease, bibliophilia, but everything suddenly became very clear for me when I heard the sound of one click shopping. And, recognising my own problem, this is why I feel defiantly confident that the ink-and-paper publishing industry will always survive—because heaps of us will always want to line our shelves and furnish our homes with books because they really just bring us comfort.

So I have half an hour to go back and cancel my order, of course, but I'm not going to. Because sometimes on a five-minute lunch break you just have to spend $75 and commit to reading Milton in 2010. Because you've known some drunk married gourmands in your time and they don't seem that much happier than you are anyway.