As We Read A Text

Deserted Libraries Hold The Shades Of Writers Who Worked Within, And Are Haunted By Their Absence.

This Morning I Looked At The Books On My Shelves And Thought That They Have No Knowledge Of My Existence. They Come To Life Because I Open Them And Turn Their Pages, And Yet They Don't Know That I Am Their Reader.

We Can Imagine The Books We'd Like To Read, Even If They Have Not Yet Been Written, And We Can Imagine Libraries Full Of Books We Would Like To Possess, Even If They Are Well Beyond Our Reacher, Because We Enjoy Dreaming Up A Library That Reflects Every One Of Our Interests And Every One Of Our Foibles--a Library That, In Its Variety And Complexity, Fully Reflects The Reader We Are.

Without Leskov There Would Be No Bulgakov, No Chekhov, But Also No Garca Mrquez And Julio Cortzar. . . . Leskov Is The Essential Storyteller: He Does Not Portray Life, He Creates It In All Its Wonder And Terror And Magic.

The Shelves Of Books We Haven't Written, Like Those Of Books We Haven't Read, Stretches Out Into The Darkness Of The Universal Library's Farthest Space. We Are Always At The Beginning Of The Beginning Of The Letter A.