My ears become my conduit to the world. In the darkness I listen—to thrillers, to detective novels, to romances; to family sagas, potboilers and historical novels; to ghost stories and classic fiction and chick lit;...

By way of this unprecedented, unbridled literary promiscuity, I have made some pleasant discoveries.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

Earlier that day, a typewriter bomb had exploded at a black market skin house over on Eel Street, sending words raining through the cardboard walls of the boudoirs and tattooing copies of the Machinist’s ‘Twelve...

Should he give free reign to his desires, the bibliomaniac can ruin his life along with the lives of his loved ones. He’ll often take better care of his books than of his own health;...

But greater than all these delights would be the possession of this wondrous library for my own use and pleasure. What more could my bibliophile’s soul ask for? Here were marvels without end, treasures beyond...

BERNARD. (To DONALD.) Donald, read any new libraries lately?DONALD. One or three. I did the complete works of Doris Lessing this week. I’ve been depressed.[. . .]BERNARD. Some people eat, some people drink, and some...

Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind.