My Fabulous Boring Book Collection

There's a small humorous essay about a guy who collects boring books (like a collection of Adlai Stevenson's speeches, for example).

From the piece in the New York Times...

My hobby has two rules: I buy books only on the street. (Uniquely boring books must present themselves willingly; you can’t hunt them down.) And the titles must meet a standard of boring intrigue that I have a hard time putting into words, beyond “I know it when I see it.” This is where — if I may shed any pretense of modesty — taste and connoisseurship come into play.

Highlights from my collection: 

Stevenson: Speeches
By Adlai Stevenson; foreword by John Steinbeck (1952).

Though he lost consecutive elections to Dwight Eisenhower, Stevenson had a reputation as a gifted speaker, esteemed for his dry, self-deprecating wit. But did even his most fervent supporters really need unexpurgated texts of his “Farm Policy” speech or the Sept. 23, 1952, address on “The Control of Inflation”? Getting the party started in his foreword, John Steinbeck notes, “A year and a half ago, I had never heard of Mr. Stevenson.”