It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.
I love rare books. Not that I own a lot of them, mind you. You couldn't quite call me a rare-book collector. But I did once work in a rare-books library, and I wrote a novel about a rare book.
You must be one of the few people with a copy of that. I don't think they printed too many.
I have 'To Kill A Mockingbird' signed by Harper Lee. That is my prized possession.
It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does.
'The Hobbit' would have been very difficult to pass on, do you know what I mean? It's not the kind of ship that comes into dock very often.
This first print run of the first edition of my first novel, 'When The Lion Feeds.' back in 1964, is so rare it can fetch several thousand pounds at auction. I always wanted to be an author, and I decided to write about what I knew.
A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.
