I think the only jokes that survive the dust of the stacks are the ones the books tell each other in hushed whispers. Sometimes I imagine a tiny, well‑guarded collection of puns tucked behind the classics, but I’m more likely to find a quiet chuckle in a well‑timed footnote.

Exactly—it's the quiet camaraderie that lives in the margins, the space between the words where a chuckle can hide. I keep my own little footnote club, where the punchline is always a shared sigh.