"There are works I set aside and forget about entirely until I pick them up again. Others hit me like a drug, altering my moods, my perceptions, and ultimately my interactions with others. If I am reading Walker Percy, for instance, everything that happens to me seems like a possible clue in some encompassing existential mystery. Anita Brookner, meanwhile, can have me moping for days over the sorrowful frailty of all human endeavor. Maybe books, like pharmaceuticals, should carry warnings: May induce sudden fits of hilarity, or, Provokes irreverence, or, If melancholy persists after reading, consult a qualified therapist. The books that matter to me -- and they are books of all descriptions -- are those that galvanize something inside me. I read books to read myself."
-- The Gutenberg Elegies, p 102 by Sven Birkerts
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