"My library consists half of books I remember and half of books I have forgotten..." -- Alberto Manguel

So many... Books I've read, books I've partly read, books I've skimmed... There are those that have slipped away, not because they were bad, though some were. But because my memory has failed in its duty. There was a book of short stories I found in a thrift store when I was fourteen. No idea the title, no idea the author. Certainly not famous. Not great. No fragment of the text remains, but images of a desert. Of a lone man reading in a quiet, dusty house. Maybe in North Africa. Maybe not.

But for a few days, in my Colorado basement, there I was. Better books before. Better books after. But that spectre remains...

And there is a sadness there. The author's only book? The one he dreamed of publishing. And now forgotten. Except by me. Whose point here is that I've forgotten it.

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