SKYE SLAMMED the cover down on the thick reference book she had been reading and shoved it across her desk to join a tall stack of similar well-worn volumes.

Give me travels and stories, please; don't want any pious works, can't seem to relish 'em, and won't pretend I do,' said Dan, following to look over her head with small favour at the long lines of well-worn volumes.

One, in particular, caught his attention, a well-worn volume, rebound in red buckram.

A woman was standing by a tall bookcase, stretching to return a well-worn volume to the top shelf.

Floor-to-ceiling bookcases held the leather-bound sea adventures of Conrad and Melville and the well-worn volumes of the great philosophers he liked to study.

As I lay in bed before turning off the light, I picked up the well-worn volume, turned to Chapter One ("Loomings"), and prepared to fulfill a lifelong goal of mine.

Recently I found myself dipping again into my well-worn volumes of these remarkable stories, but this time I couldn't help looking at Sherlock Holmes with the eyes of a doctor.

So, as a new resident of the Boston area, I've experienced the trail in both ways, following along on part of a guided tour but mainly, in the spirit of the transcendentalists, taking advantage of its open horizons, with relevant well-worn volumes of literature in hand.

I ask him to permit me to examine the hymn-book which he uses in his work, and with touching eagerness he presses upon me a well-worn volume bearing the title "Waves of Glory".

His extensive bookshelves groaned under the weight of hundreds of books that included first editions of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, and well-worn volumes containing the writings of the great philosophers.