I knew it was a Jewish fable about death, which the author had retold when his own father died. And the sight of such a book was like meeting a long-lost friend in the midst of a wasteland. There in the IRA exhibit hall, I cried. I know there were others. A real book is what you get when you write or publish because a story fills your heart till it overflows, or tickles your mind till it pops, or burns in your gut till it eats its way out, or lights up your soul till it radiates forth.
Real books enrich.
Crap merely impresses. Real books dive deep. Crap skims the surface. Real books nourish. Seldom does one heart speak to another.