In an age of downloaded pages, some will miss the easy pleasure of opening a new book. You pick it up with an appraising hand, the heft and feel heralding its importance. The opening crack of an unbent spine. Without thinking, bring the open pages to your nose and note the smell of crisp new ink and printer's clay. You lift a single page and feel its sharp edge and thickness, measuring some ineffable quality.
Then there is the unbidden reverence given antiquarian texts, some hundreds of years old. This is a more deliberate look, or maybe just a grateful peek. , The church like aroma of a reverenced book. Will it be so fragile that you fear adding an everlasting blemish to a treasure that has withstood centuries? Perhaps inside discover a written note, and ponder the ancient hand that left it.
This extensive collection honors the book, and is part of a larger effort to preserve these simple pleasures. Through the efforts of the Adams Foundation for Achival Books (AFAB) the effort continues, preserving not just the text, but the experience.
Growing up in 1920's Washington, DC, he spent his summers in the rich Maryland farmland.
Dr. Adams developed an appreciation of the remarkable human progress that led up to and included that turbulent time between two wars, While a family physician for over 60 years, he acquired a library documenting these times and more.