An essayist offers a lively portrait of those who collect printed books, distinguishing bibliophiles—who prize texts and elegant bindings and whose taste once belonged to royalty and financiers—from bibliophobes who discard or neglect books. He traces the rise of print and changing collectors' motives, sketches social shifts that moved book love from the aristocracy to scholars and modest owners, and blends historical allusion with personal anecdote and wit. The piece reflects on the material and emotional value readers attach to books, laments the commercial erosion of collecting, and maps different collector types while urging awareness of a vanishing cultural habit.