Of Books

Books are galleons of the mind, each sail-white page bellying with the winds of thought, their holds full of knowledge, joy, and wonder. The cover unfurls, transporting us to other lands--some new and strange, ripe for adventure and learning; others as familiar and comforting as a well-aged madeira.

For a thousand years, books, like ships, were painstaking creations, their hulls laid a page at a time by nameless monks in scriptoria. The sheer labor involved in creating a book meant that it was respected as much as an object in-and-of itself as for the knowledge it contained. Books were rare, and the largest medieval library in Europe held barely over five hundred. Today books are churned out in tens of thousands, and reverence for the book-as-object is but a dim memory. To many, they are now mere containers for words--barrels rather than barques.

However, the purpose of books has not changed. They still can defend the empires of the mind and carry away those seeking new vistas. But how do we set the sails and unlock the power of a book? The same way it has always been done--by reading it well.

Read more than the mere words. Bring the silks and spices of ideas up from the hold, smell the salt air of inspiration on every page. Weigh the cargo, test it for fitness and beauty.

Read once for enjoyment, twice for knowledge. Examine how the words are put together, the clarity of language, the billowing rise and fall of the prose. Ask "What is the purpose of this book? This chapter? This sentence?" Chart which propositions the author states, and which are merely assumed. Test them all like planks for soundness, looking that no woodworm of error has made them weak. Examine how the planks are assembled into arguments, and check that the reasoning--like the hull of a ship--is likewise sound and appropriate. Is it a narrow sloop built for a single idea, or a capacious galleon, intended to carry a wealth of different ones? Can she weather the stiff winds of criticism? Are there holes in the author's logic that will sink her? Or is she trim, with elegantly coiled lines and reefed sails?

A good book should be as celebrated as a great ship--the Golden Sayings as famous the Golden Hind, the works of Milton as well known as the deeds of the Missouri. The owner of a good library is an admiral of a powerful fleet, and to be respected no less than his nautical counterpart. If he not only possesses, but makes good use of the fleet at his command, he will win a victory of the mind that, while lacking a marble column, will grant him a prize to last the rest of his days.