For Borges, The Core Of Reality Lay

I Like To Imagine That, On The Day After My Last, My Library And I Will Crumble Together, So That Even When I Am No More I'll Still Be With My Books.

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.

It Has Always Been My Experience That, Whatever Groupings I Choose For My Books, The Space In Which I Plan To Lodge Them Necessarily Reshapes My Choice And, More Important, In No Time Proves Too Small For Them And Forces Me To Change My Arrangement. In A Library, No Empty Shelf Remains Empty For Long. Like Nature, Libraries Abhor A Vacuum, And The Problem Of Space Is Inherent In The Very Nature Of Any Collection Of Books.

Reading In Bed Is A Self-centered Act, Immobile, Free From Ordinary Social Conventions, Invisible To The World, And One That, Because It Takes Place Between The Sheets, In The Realm Of Lust And Sinful Idleness, Has Something Of The Thrill Of Things Forbidden.

If The Book Is Second-hand, I Leave All Its Markings Intact, The Spoor Of Previous Readers, Fellow-travellers Who Have Recorded Their Passage By Means Of Scribbled Comments, A Name On The Fly-leaf, A Bus Ticket To Mark A Certain Page.