The Fairfax County Library system has many benefits, chief among them the fact that I can order books online and pick them up at my branch — not a high-tech offering, I’ll admit, but a generous and handy one.

Of course, this means I usually have more books on my nightstand than I can possibly read and must stay on top of a wide array of due dates. It’s a task I’m more than happy to undertake given the pleasures it provides.

Usually I have a little slip plus an email reminder that tells me when the books are due. But this time the email failed to arrive, so I went online to check the due dates. And lo and behold, I found a brand-new catalog and extended deadlines — two weeks longer! — for the three volumes I have.

Though I know the extension is due to the new catalog, it feels more like an early holiday gift for those of us whose reading eyes are bigger than our stomachs. It’s positively a windfall — and I’ll enjoy every (extra) minute of it!