We do read the books in this group. We usually even talk about them. Unless...

He could judge with reasonable accuracy the amount of use a book had had. The first item to show any sign of wear was the dust jacket at the top and bottom of the spine. Little tears or cracks in the paper appeared here if a book had been taken off a shelf as much as three or four times.

Yes, births. Inaugurations. Those do interfere.

You need to have something for yourself.

Work your way up or rust your way out.

But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.

“Oh, yes,” Lestat said. “Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive.”

“What a strange thing to say at your age,” she laughed.

“No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer one hope —- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved.