Now, where the deuce is that book? I want to blog about it. Did I lend it to someone? It’s a hardcover, so it should be on the top shelf…

Ah, wait. Let me turn this pile of books aside for the reveal…

Can you quite see it? There are two books side by side there that are my own copies of books I first discovered in the Banff Public Library when I was a youth and spent much enjoyable time sitting in that glorious wood-and-carpet high-ceilinged room reading (the library has since moved and the building it was in is now a museum).

Not the Machiavelli book – that was grad school. No, both of these books promise knowledge unknown to most but valuable to initiates. Secrets arcane and possibly even a bit louche. For one of them, the time and place I got my copy is a forgotten…