IT WAS THE HOUSE-SITTER WHO, AS HE marvelled at the book-lined walls of our sitting room, made me doubt my sanity. “What a great collection of books you have!” he said. “I was sad to part with mine, but now I have a much larger library on my Kindle — and it takes up no space at all.” Marcus, a gentle giant and evidently a well-read one,
could not have been more courteous, and in a sense he was absolutely right. In the course of my lifetime, the private library has gone from being a necessity for any thinking person to become at best a luxury, at worst a burden. Nobody has to own books any
