“About seven hundred years ago Richard de Bury—an English monk, librarian, book collector, and eventually Bishop of Durham—wrote that ‘in books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.’ An effusive encomium to the joys and benefits of reading, yes, but not too effusive. Richard’s bookish, readerly community, extending through time and across space, has still a substantial membership; nonreaders outnumber us—always have and always will—but we can always find one another and are always eager to welcome others into the fold. May our tribe increase.”
— Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
