a houseful of 'Penguins'

that is the kind of news story that just makes me happy. Partly the fact that her husband understands her so well that he knew the "perfect" gift (well, HE gets to enjoy it, too, but still). And happy that the story of the fire had a happier ending. And happy that there's someone out there that has the complete library.

(I will observe that I do not like this quote: ""We don't own a TV set," Ms. Gursky said, by way of explaining how she has had time to read a new book roughly every two days since the collection arrived. With four cats but no children, "we don't have anything better to do" than read, she said." Something better to do than read? That's un-possible!)

I'm very much a completist. I have to be careful about that - I like to buy all the books of a series, especially if they're all by the same publisher, in the same size and format. (Right now, I'm in love with the Bruce Alexander "Sir John Fielding" novels. I've read the first one and most of the second, and have one of the later ones. They're all in the little mass-market paperback, and I really want to get more. All the same. All the same publisher, same size, same cover style. No, not check them out of the library; I want to OWN them. I want to be able to line them up on a shelf, have them there like old friends, be able to look at them after I've read them and remember the stories or the particularly good turns of phrase). I own the first two Harry Pottern books and have thought about getting the others to read some time (even though I've not finished the second), but they'd "have" to be the hardback version because that's what the first two I have are.

And Penguins - I love them. I have a few of Anthony Trollope's novels in the orange-covered (British version, I think) format, with his shaggy curmudgeonly portrait staring out from the front. And a few others in the fancier version with some kind of painting or drawing from "Punch" reproduced on the front. And I have a bunch of the little bitty "Penguin 60s" that came out perhaps 10 years ago as part of some anniversary or other the publisher was having. And the orange-and-black color scheme, when spotted in a used book store, usually gets my heart beating a bit faster.

I am not a gambling woman and would never buy a lottery ticket, but if I were or if I did, and I won $10,000 or so, I cannot think of a more wonderful (and quixotic: can you imagine what the news-bots on the television would say about it?) way to spend the loot.