Book Love

About the Book

Book Love: Twenty Essays on an Affair without End is about book love (or bibliophilia) and book lovers (or bibliophiles). It discusses the subject from multiple angles and perspectives. Why do some people (the author included) become bibliophiles? Why do they love, purchase, collect, and cherish books, write about them, and build, support and donate to libraries? Who are some of the world’s great book collectors, past and present. Where can you find the world’s most beautiful libraries, and the most famous or unusual booksellers? What have some of the book lovers or experts said about their book love and book acquiring experiences? Where and how can book lovers and professionals learn more about rare books? The text is accompanied by illustrations of the people, events and achievements relayed. It discusses what makes books “old, rare and beautiful” from the author’s perspective and presents samples of each. And it closes with timely speculation about the future of the printed book, booksellers, and libraries in the digital age. Bibliophilia has sometimes been compared to a disease without cure. The essays between these covers help us appreciate why.

About the Author

About the Author: Bension Varon (Ph.D., Penn) is a retired economist with wide interests as a writer, including history, genealogy, and biography. Born in Istanbul, Turkey—a quintessentially cosmopolitan city—he has a multicultural background and spent forty years working for international organizations (World Bank in Washington, DC and the United Nations in New York). He is an avid bibliophile practically since childhood and a book collector. He has authored Cultures in Counterpoint: Memoirs of a Sephardic Turkish American (2009) and, more recently, Gifts of Language: Multilingualism and Turkish-Sephardic Culture (2016). He lives and writes in Alexandria, Virginia and can be reached at Benvaron@aol.com.