On the 14th August I travelled from Cardiff to London on the first leg of my journey to Dijon. Once in London I mislaid a book of mine: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley – one of the most enthralling pieces of non-fiction I’ve read in a long time. I probably left this book on the coach I travelled on during the short journey between the two cities.
But why am I writing this now?
After reading about Mike Mitchell’s recently received, unexpected and improbable parcel, I am a renewed believer in the philanthropic mind, and am now hoping that the person who eventually found my book didn’t hand it to Lost Property because they’re reading The Red Queen before attempting to find the original owner.
Well that ‘original owner’ is me, and I hope you enjoyed the book. (I can hope, right?)
But why? It’s not about losing a material possession or the fact that I only had two chapters left to read. It’s that throughout the pages of the book were my notes: those profound quotes, the concepts I wanted to study further, the words or sentences I wanted to copy down: they’re gone now. Gone until I read the book again. That is why I hope it finds its way back to me.
Of course, it will also pain me ever-so-slightly to re-purchase an already read book instead of a new, undiscovered one. However, as Woo Lai Wah said to Mike Mitchell, “unfortunately, ascending spirituality is expensive”.
via clusterflock and Kottke