Bibliomania

If we are going to be politically correct, I would have to identify myself as a bibliophile with high risk of developing bibliomania. I love holding a book worn by the hands of the past, the smell of a book as you flip through its sleek pages, the soft thud of closing a book for the last time as you finish a really good book …

I can’t help it. I just love books.

In Latin, bibl- means book & mania- means madness, (i.e. maniac, kleptomania)

BIBLIOMANIA is the collecting or hoarding of books that will have no use or intrinsic value to the collector, exhibiting behaviors such as purchasing multiple copies of the same book or simply buying more books thatn you have room for. BIBLIOMANIA can be linked to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, becoming a clinical psychological disorder when an individual’s social behaviors or health is put at risk.

The term was created by Dr. John Ferriar (1761 - 1815), a physician at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He studied the causes of typhoid, wrote some essays, and reformed some sanitation laws. Apparently, he wrote a poem mocking wealthy, avid book collectors.

I guess that’s how they deal with politics in the 18th Century. I wonder if the world would be more peaceful if politics were required to be conducted in poems. But you could always argue that speeches are poems..

If elected President, I, Amanda Abend,

Solemnly swear to bring War to an end,

With the sweet caress of a poems soft lines

In leading a country whose fate in my hands lie.

So, that was a pretty terrible example, but you get my point. And if this was how people went about asking for things, I bet people would be less apt to be angry in general. With less anger in the world, we would have less war. Simple deductive reasoning.

Bibliomania is not to be confused with bibliophilia, the general love of books. Bibliophilia is not a psychological disorder.

Other book-related social behaviors include bibliophagy (the eating or swallowing of books), bibliokleptomania (the stealing of books), and bibliotaphy (taphos means tomb in Greek, the burying of books).

And there absolutely are people who do things like this. A guy named Stephen Blumberg was convicted of stealing $5.3 million dollars worth of books. Imagine spending $5,300,000 on books alone … how a person could steal such an obscene amount of books is impressively immoral.

Then there is this other guy named Thomas Phillipps who owned over 160,000 books and manuscripts when he died in 1872. He owned so many that the whole collection was auctioned off until around 1946 – over 100 years after his death. He literally had collected a lifetime of books.

Books are a part of my soul, one of the reasons I enjoy life. All the bibliophiles out there, this is a call to action. Everyone should know what it feels like to love books as we do, so I offer you this challenge. Though I encourage collecting books, I do not encourage developing a strong attachment to the physical in life. You can't take it with you. So choose a book that is dear to you, wrap it in newspaper and string, and gift it to someone who you believe will enjoy it. Simple surprises are another amazing gift of life - embrace them.