In my case, adulthood itself was not an advance, although it was a useful waymark.

I'm a sucker for interiors and carefully, beautifully filmed people sitting in a big room. My appetites are simple.

Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge! It is a staggering conception, showing an age-transforming feel for the unique properties of pulped wood fiber.

I like shelves full of books in a library, but if all books become electronic, the task of big research libraries remains the same - keep what's published in the form in which it appeared.

Haven't you felt a peculiar sort of worry about the chair in your living room that no one sits in?

I no longer want to live in an apartment furnished with forklifts and backhoes.

Maybe the Kindle was the Bowflex of bookishness: something expensive that, when you commit to it, forces you to do more of whatever it is you think you should be doing more of.