A Book Brings Its Own History To

And Sometimes, When The Stars Are Kind, We Read With An Intake Of Breath, With A Shudder, As If Someone Or Something Had 'walked Over Our Grave,' As If A Memory Had Suddenly Been Rescued From A Place Deep Within Us - The Recognition Of Something We Never Knew Was There, Or Of Something We Vaguely Felt As A Flicker Or A Shadow, Whose Ghostly Form Rises And Passes Back Into Us Before We Can See What It Is, Leaving Us Older And Wiser.

Every Text Assumes A Reader.

For Borges, The Core Of Reality Lay In Books; Reading Books, Writing Books, Talking About Books. In A Visceral Way, He Was Conscious Of Continuing A Dialogue Begun Thousands Of Years Before And Which He Believed Would Never End.

It Used To Be That Readers Were Relegated Because They Considered Themselves Far Above Society, And So The Metaphor Of The Ivory Tower Developed. Now There's Still This Idea That The Reader Doesn't Take Part In The Social Game And In Politics, The Res Publica, But For Other Reasons: He Doesn't Do It Because He's Not Making Any Money.

All These Are Readers, And Their Gestures, Their Craft, The Pleasure, The Responsibility And The Power They Derive From Reading, Are Common With Mine. I Am Not Alone.