I learned about the Book Club of Washington at the Antiquarian Book Fair at Seattle Center last October.
My book collecting started as an offshoot of my interest in automobiles. I have always been interested in cars, but when I was a teenager, I found buying books about cars easier than buying actual cars.
Even though I had to move many of those books across the country several times, I still have most of them. About five years ago, after I turned being a car expert into my profession, I started to add books to my library more regularly and with more purpose. I have just over 100 books in my library and probably three times as many magazines and brochures.
I seek books that fill in gaps in my knowledge and areas of interest. Those areas are sometimes blurred between my own and what would be useful for my work, but the overlap doesn't bother me. I look for books with novel content, quality printing, and accurate information.
Most of the books in my library aren't that old, partly because the subject isn't that old, but also because automotive books have gotten a lot better in the past 20 years. I tend to have more books about Italian cars, and some of those are in Italian, a language I'm slowly learning. However, I don't have many books about Ferrari, because that is a genre that's exhaustively (ha!) covered.
While I still consider myself a car enthusiast first, I recognize that collecting books has many of the same characteristics, such as discovery, connoisseurship, and experience. I look forward to learning more about the the book-collecting community in the Pacific Northwest through the club.
John Wiley, New BCW Book Club Member
Mr. Wiley is one of over 20 new members that have joined the Book Club of Washington since October.
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