Today I went to the estate sale of a noted Philadelphian bibliophile. He was a lawyer by trade, and his brownstone home was chock-full of books: all four floors, plus the basement, over 100,000 books in total. The vast majority of his collection was nonfiction, with books on botany, philosophy, and poetry making up a good portion of what I saw. What I was not expecting: a whole collection of books about Newfoundland, including history, folklore, and photography—literally hundreds of books. He was an amateur botanist, as well as a fisherman, and apparently those activities were the beginning of his fascination with my home province. It was difficult not to just buy dozens of books, but I limited myself to three on Newfoundland, and three poetry books, including one by my favourite poet, Philip Larkin. The pictures in the Newfoundland photography book reminded me so much of my childhood, and there’s even a photo from where I used to live (Norman’s Cove). I love finding ephemera in used books, and to my delight, Michael Crummey’s book had not only the bill of sale for it and other books from a Corner Brook bookseller, but also a scratch off ticket from Mary Brown’s (best legs in town!). One other surprising thing about this man’s library: of the thousands of books I saw, I only spotted a half dozen of modern fiction, and while his tastes in nonfiction ran to the cerebral, he also enjoyed James Patterson and David Baldacci. One last thought: after seeing this man’s collection, I don’t think I have too many books!