A Book Brings Its Own History To

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.

Entering A Library, I Am Always Stuck By The Way In Which A Certain Vision Of The World Is Imposed Upon The Reader Through Its Categories And Its Order.

If The Library In The Morning Suggests An Echo Of The Severe And Reasonable Wishful Order Of The World, The Library At Night Seems To Rejoice In The World's Essential, Joyful Muddle.

At Different Times And In Different Places I Have Come To Expect Certain Books To Look A Certain Way, And, As In All Fashions, These Changing Features Fix A Precise Quality Onto A Book's Definition. I Judge A Book By Its Cover; I Judge A Book By Its Shape.

As Centuries Of Dictators Have Known, An Illiterate Crowd Is The Easiest To Rule; Since The Craft Of Reading Cannot Be Untaught Once It Has Been Acquired, The Second-best Recourse Is To Limit Its Scope.