Four plastic grocery bags of books sit on the floor behind me, the booty of the local public library s annual bargain book sale. As if this bounty were not enough, I just ordered six more books from the Book of the Month Club. They specialize in publishers' overstocks. I know that, even if I devoted every waking hour to reading the books I already possess, I will never read them all before I die. That saddens me because books are one of the great passions of my life.
Movies are another.
I also have an intense passion about teaching language and literature and, to a lesser extent, about writing. I discovered movies when I was just five years old. I discovered books by the time I was a high school freshman, although I was not able to recognize greatness in art until I was almost twenty years old. And they continue to sustain me. When I was a child, and for many years after that, I saw my life as a movie.