“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

"A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion."   Umberto Eco

If you've not read Helen Hanff's book 84  Charing Cross Road (1970), a true story about a New York writer and a London bookseller and books and friendship you'll still appreciate her comment "I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest."

Hanff and bookseller Frank Doel corresponded as Hanff searched for hundreds of obscure books. Hanff postponed visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968  and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.

Don't you just love it when you find that  you and an earlier reader are so wonderfully linked. In fact, it was my good friend Marge who introduced me to the book about30 years ago. She and I were were joined by friendship and a love of books and language.

Information just doesn't float around and get gathered on its own. Libraries give it structure. It's a place that people come to create information and knowledge.
Joyce Ogburn

Books, the children of the brain.
Jonathan Swift

Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.
Mark Twain

"A library's function is to give the public in the quickest and cheapeast way information, inspiration, and recreation. If a better way than the book can be found, we should use it."
Melvil Dewey (1851-1931)
American Librarian and Educator