Earlier this summer, reading Jeff Deutsch’s In Praise of Good Bookstores, I came across what one might call the book-browser’s credo: “The book with which one was familiar was not, in most cases, the book one needed. It was the unknown neighbor on the same shelf.” It was an experience of just that kind, stumbling upon an unknown neighbor on the shelves, that led me to what has become one of my favorite bibliophilic discoveries.
Peter C. Meilaender is professor of political science and dean of religion, humanities, and global studies at Houghton University.
