The novelist Alice Hoffman once observed that books “may well be the only true magic.”
Hoffman isn’t the only person to recognize the power of the written word. C.S. Lewis observed that books reveal to us that we’re not alone, while Frederick Douglass saw their liberating power.
I’ve long observed that you can learn a lot about people by looking at their bookshelves. Some might say this is because books are a reflection of us, and this is partly true; but books also shape who we are. They have the power to lead us to truth or conceal it from us….