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How Stupidly Selling Books from My Collection Gave Me a Lifelong Quest
A benefit I never expected
In the film Serendipity, the story revolves in part around the search for a book. After spending one glorious evening together, Sara Thomas (played by Kate Beckinsale) and Jonathan Trager (played by John Cusack) foolishly agree to not simply exchange phone numbers but to let fate decide their next step. Sara buys a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera from a street vendor and tells Jonathan she will write her name and number on the inside flyleaf the next day and sell it to a used bookshop. If he finds it, then they were meant to be together.
It’s a ridiculous idea, of course, not least of all because they are in New York City at a time when there were still countless used bookstores. Regardless, the search is on, a search that occupies much of the film. I watched the movie again recently, and in a serendipitous moment of my own I saw myself in Johnathan’s quest (for the book, not Kate).
Late last year, I wrote a story titled “The Blessing and Curse of Being Both a Book Collector and a Bookseller” in which I lamented an ongoing internal battle I have fought all of my life. From the time I was a child I have suffered (happily) from a condition known as bibliomania (“the excessive fondness for acquiring and possessing books”), and for…
