The perfect date
I started 2025 with the perfect date—my wife and I did a tour of Sydney’s biggest bookshops (Abbeys, Dymocks and Kinokuniya). Why was this so unusual?
Is book collecting a sin?
I have so many books that my wife usually treats my acquisition of more as a major offence punishable by a lecture on my profligacy (I prefer to think of it as fictional irresponsibility).
But I tell her in my defence, that there are worse vices than collecting books. We know gamblers, womanisers, smokers and drinkers and even people who have bought sailing boats. So an obsession with books surely is not one of the Seven Deadly Sins, my dear!
Does my book obsession make me a bibliophile, bibliomaniac or a bibliophiliac.
Book addiction
But being addicted to books does have some hidden costs apart from the cost of the books themselves. It is impossible to balance the books, so to speak, without a parallel quest and supply of book storage solutions (the deposits). Whereas my wife would usually like to deposit a good percentage of my collection in wheelie bins, I am always on a quest for bargain bookcases.
And, on this, another promising start to 2025 has been a purchase before Christmas of a magnificent mahogany bookcase. However, as part of permission from my family I had to dispose of two large utilitarian cupboards (for book storage obviously) and get rid of a bookcase that this was to replace. I do think I was out-manoeuvred here, because I now seem to have quite a few more books than I have places to store them.
What does it mean?
Bibliophile
My name is Tim and I am a bibliophile. A bibliophile is a lover of books. It is a newish word from 1824, deriving from the French bibliophile. Biblio is a very old word element meaning book or sometimes Bible. Phil is also a word-forming element of Greek origin meaning one that loves, likes, or is attracted to. Biblio comes from Greek biblion for paper or scroll. Originally it was a diminutive (i.e. meaning a smaller version) of byblos used for Egyptian papyrus.
Byblos was a Phoenician port—which is now the modern Jebeil, in Lebanon—from which Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The place name is likely of Egyptian origin.
Bibliomaniac
Bibliophilism or bibliophily is the affliction associated with being a bibliophile (especially for first or fine editions). However, a more serious form of book loving is bibliomania. Bibliomania is defined as an extreme preoccupation with collecting books. Its first use (in French bibliomanie) was by a French writer, Guy Patin (1601-72). He used the word several times in his correspondence (which was published) the earliest in 1652.
So a book fanatic becomes a bibliomaniac, a book extremist. There is also bibliophiliac which seems to be a new word evolving on the Internet for the affliction—the suffix –philiac is a form of -phile used in medicine terms particularly pathology (-philiac from Greek philiakos meaning friend).
Books in 2025
I am happy with my affliction and I am looking forward to a book-filled 2025.