What would I want delivered to my doorstep every morning, like the newspaper or milk? Books.

Let’s suppose these books are selected specially for me, but they are a surprise. I won’t know what books to expect, so it will be like a visit to the best bookshops, where I never know what treasure I will encounter. The only guarantee is that I will be enchanted, immediately engrossed, or filled with joy at what I will learn once I open the book’s cover.

The books will be both old and new. The new books will have colorful book jackets, like a Natalie Goldberg painting. Or understated images. The books that are old will be beautifully embossed with delicate art and elegant lettering. The old ones will never be musty, but perhaps fragranced with incense.

The book delivery will include some good, classic fiction. And poignant memoir, like Diary of Anne Frank. And travelogues, and the best instruction in the arts – visual , musical – and yoga, ballet, and cooking. Food. Histories of domestic life, like Lark Rise to Candleford, and children’s books like The Wind in the Willows, and Peter Rabbit. Poetry – free verse, haiku, lyric. And in all languages.

As a child I used to wonder why “Publisher’s Clearinghouse” had a monetary prize, and not publications: books. What a disappointment to learn that there are no “books every week for the rest of your life!” Of course, one could buy books with the money, but that would take away the element of surprise.

No, better to have a caravan stop quietly each morning at my door, and drop off a beautifully wrapped bundle of books tied with colorful silk string. I would pick it up from the porch with reverence, with the quiet joy of one who welcomes a dear, dear friend inside.