“The love of books, the possession of them, can be thought of as an extension of one’s self or being, not separate from a love of life but rather as an extra dimension of it, and even of what comes after. ‘Paradise is a library,’ as Borges said.”
Over at The New Yorker, James Salter excerpts his introduction to Jacques Bonnet’s book Phantoms on the Bookshelves. Bonnet, a French publisher, translator, author, and art historian, has a personal library of over forty thousand titles. His book is a meditation on life as a serial reader and the silent companionship of print literature. To read the rest of Salter’s essay, click here.
