Books can look exciting, and publishers spend lots of money on graphic designers who make the covers that invite you inside. A bookstore is a good place for intellectual snacks. Also, regrettably, my dog likes books. But as mere sensory objects, books are ultimately static. Without the reader s mind they are just smashed trees with funny markings on them.
Good bookstores sell understanding.
Great ideas aren t born in vacuums. Somewhere in their lineage are other great ideas that surprised people with their truth and ended up in books. Maybe we ll pluck that truth from an author who would normally repulse us, and thereby ring a little bell for the great and imperiled cause of free expression. Books close a soundproof window on the world, if you want them to. One hot July afternoon just outside Washington, D.C., I watched a couple in their seventies shop at Olsson s Books and Records.