At Different Times And In Different Places

It Is In The Translation That The Innocence Lost After The First Reading Is Restored Under Another Guise, Since The Reader Is Once Again Faced With A New Text And Its Attendant Mystery. That Is The Inescapable Paradox Of Translation, And Also Its Wealth.

We Read To Understand, Or To Begin To Understand. We Cannot Do But To Read. Reading Almost As Much As Breathing, Is Our Essential Function.

Old Books That We Have Known But Not Possessed Cross Our Path And Invite Themselves Over. New Books Try To Seduce Us Daily With Tempting Titles And Tantalizing Covers.

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.

Something About The Possession Of A Book - An Object That Can Contain Infinite Fables, Words Of Wisdom, Chronicles Of Times Gone By, Humorous Anecdotes And Divine Revelation - Endows The Reader With The Power Of Creating A Story, And The Listener With A Sense Of Being Present At The Moment Of Creation.