Every book has roots at least six months old. The full stock of all past books is available without special programming or artificially energized, obsolescing machinery. Every book reader can find momentary refuge from the present. Second, the bias of publicity. We are dominated by public images and publicly spoken words.
Sunshine laws make private conferences of our highest officials a new kind of public word.
When the President and Secretary of State have a private conversation, it appears verbatim in the newspapers. The public word and the public speaker reach us vividly and continually, impelled by large expenditures of capital and vast organizations, on channels regulated from within and without. More than ever, each of us needs a private island where each of us does his own programming, and where only one person, each of us, is sovereign. Third, the bias of statistics. Not the least of the special charms for a reader today is refuge from the quantifiable.