A library book has arrived and I will pick it up today. I contemplate the quaintness of this concept. Knowledge between two covers. Information not available online. A book I can’t access digitally but must travel through space to retrieve.

I consider the practicalities. I will tack this onto another errand. I’ll check out other books, too. Why waste a trip on just one tome? I will bring a backpack and an umbrella. I may also stop at a bakery near campus that sells exquisite baguettes made with flour imported from France. I hope to return home with sustenance for mind and body.

The analog world — it used to be all there was. Now it can feel like a sideshow.

(The only surviving original copy of Beowulf, photographed at the British Library in May.)