I have a soft spot for the way books smell, especially when they're cloth- or leather-bound. I also have a soft spot for almost everything in the Levenger catalog because it's clever, witty or involves v. nice pens.

Levenger Press books have been subjects of my adoration since I first saw leather-bound copies of Lewis Carroll's Feeding the Mind and Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing in their catalog. They were out of my budget then and no longer in stock now, but their latest e-mail gave me a new book to lust after: Henry Cabot Lodge's Boston (1891). 251 pages in two colors on cream stock, blue leather binding, illustrated with engravings from the archives of the Boston Public Library and the Boston Athenaeum.

Pardon me while I go swoon. Repeatedly.