One Can Transform A Place By Reading

A Library Is An Ever-growing Entity; It Multiples Seemingly Unaided, It Reproduces Itself By Purchase, Theft, Borrowings, Gifts, By Suggesting Gaps Through Association, By Demanding Completion Of Sorts.

Every Reader Has Found Charms By Which To Secure Possession Of A Page That, By Magic, Becomes As If Never Read Before, Fresh And Immaculate.

Books May Not Change Our Suffering, Books May Not Protect Us From Evil, Books May Not Tell Us What Is Good Or What Is Beautiful, And They Will Certainly Not Shield Us From The Common Fate Of The Grave. But Books Grant Us Myriad Possibilities: The Possibility Of Change, The Possibility Of Illumination.

The Stories That Unfold In The Space Of A Writer's Study, The Objects Chosen To Watch Over A Desk, The Books Selected To Sit On The Shelves, All Weave A Web Of Echoes And Reflections Of Meanings And Affections, That Lend A Visitor The Illusion That Something Of The Owner Of This Space Lives On Between These Walls, Even If The Owner Is No More.

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.