Today, taking advantage of the great benefit bequeathed to us by the institution of public libraries, I borrow books of philosophy, psychology, memoir, biography and autobiography, volumes of history, religion, sociology, politics, mystery novels, works of cultural and literary criticism and even the occasional work of imaginative fiction, from the munificence of the Ottawa Public Library, as our house is too full of books for me to acquire any more, and the whispering and murmur, “the million sounds” from our bookshelves, is already deafening. And when I come across a child lost in a good book, I am careful not to disturb her…
The affirming words of Allan Bloom, found in his seminal study The Closing of the American Mind, are identical in spirit to my own, and apply as much to childhood as to adulthood. “The substance of my being,” he says, “has been formed by the books I learned to care for. They accompany me every minute of every day of my life, making me see much more and be much more than I could have seen or been.”
