The Magic of Books

The New College changed its name after John Harvard left the institution his library of 400 books and a bit of money.

My own library is many times the size of his. Most is made up of paperback fiction, but a fair percentage is hard cover classics. My library is strewn around the house in bookcases and in piles on the floor. Some that I have read and want to keep, is in boxes in the attic.

As a high school kid I baby sat in a house (I hesitate to call it a home) that had not a single piece of reading material in it, not even a TV guide. These were well educated upper middle class people with small children. This is so inconceivable to me that I have remembered it in detail. I even went through the trash looking for old newspapers. I can’t imagine living without something to read.

We seem to be returning to the day when 400 books were considered a huge library. With hand held reading devices, we will limit the number to something more manageable than my personal library. I probably could cull to a few hundred that I wanted to keep and feel and read from paper, and stuff the piles on the floor into some electronic thingy.

Can’t you just see John Harvard leaving his Kindle to the college?