The MagazineI am about to publish a new book—egads, my twenty-first, which surely qualifies me as a graphomaniac—and the other day 25 so-called author’s copies arrived. The thrill of holding the artifact, the physical object that is the palpable result of one’s lucubrations, in one’s hand is still there. So is the slight nervousness entailed in opening it up, and glimpsing the thousands of sentences one has indited. Some of these sentences give genuine pleasure; others one would like to have the chance to rework, ever so slightly but crucially. But, as the old song has it, it’s too late, baby, now, it’s too late. These 25 books are called “finished copies” for a reason.  Photo Credit: Chris Gash Now comes the problem—a happy problem, I admit—of to whom to send these copies and how to sign them. Receiving a signed copy of a book from the author who wrote it is not an altogether unmixed blessing. The late Arnaldo Momigliano, in his day the greatest living historian of the ancient world, once said to me, as we were passing a bookstore on 57th Street in Chicago: “You know, my dear Epstein, the cheapest way to acquire a book is to buy it.” I pondered these words for a bit before I came to realize that what Arnaldo meant is that if you buy a book at least you don’t have to read the damn thing. But if you are given one as a gift, especially by the book’s author, you are under the obligation not only of reading it but having to respond, preferably in a complimentary way, by letter or by telephone. In sending these books out, then, I am putting their recipients under a heavy obligation. To read more, you must be a Weekly Standard Subscriber We're Sorry,
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