book collection, n.Definitions

A Book collection is generally all the books one has that no one wants to borrow.

A Book collection is something some folks have in the same way that a eunuch has a harem.

A Book collection is mostly made of borrowed books — Who robs a scholar, robs twenty men.

A Book collection is not simply for reading. Even if one cannot read all one's books, one can fondle them, peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with one's own hands, arrange them on one's own plan so that one at least knows where they are. Even if one cannot let all one's books be one's friends... one can, at any rate, let them be one's acquaintances.

A Book collection is always under threat: to keep it intact, buy three copies of every book: one to show, one to loan, and one to read.