A friend of mine, someone I’ve known most of my life, is a bit of a book collector. He reads them too, of course, but for him, collecting books is more about the acquisition of books than the reading of them. Over the years he’s managed to get a number of the books in his collection signed by their authors, and he values these books more as a result. So he was intrigued to learn that Fitzcarraldo Editions, an independent publisher based in England, was planning to publish special limited editions of ten titles from their list, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the press. These ten books—several of them written by authors who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature—were to be signed and numbered by the authors themselves; each book would be “casebound in fine linen cloth,” and would feature “a belly band and custom marbled endpapers.” My friend selected two titles from the publisher’s list of ten, submitted his order, and waited patiently. Eventually—delayed by a Canada Post strike and a Christmas backlog—a package was left upon his doorstep. Inside were the long-awaited books, each of them protected by a shrink-wrapped prophylactic covering of plastic film. So far my friend has left the plastic film intact to preserve their theoretical value, he says, and to protect the books in their original pristine state. I pointed out that, shrink-wrapped, these books might be nothing more than two bricks of unprinted paper. But my friend trusts the books are as promised: signed by their authors, and graced by marbled endpapers and a belly band—the publisher’s website offers photographic proof. He takes comfort in knowing that, as long as the plastic film remains in place, Schrödinger’s cat will (probably) have something good to read. —Michael Hayward