The Value of a Good Book

For the cost of a game of golf, I could buy a good book. Then with that book I could spend several nights in intimate fellowship as I hold it in my hands, touch and smell the pages as I turn each one in delight. It becomes a companion to new insights of knowledge or adventures of the imagination. A good book, one that is bound well, crafted under high standards and authored by a wise pen, is like being invited into a circle close friends in a gracious conversation. One can argue with a good book. Much as one would argue and debate a dear friend over issues that matter or truths worth sharpening, books require engagement. Bad literature and sloppy books can be easily closed, discarded or forgotten. But the ones that demand your attention and engage your thoughts toward higher and loftier ideas are like treasures discovered in a barren field. Is the book then a dead object once read? Not at all – it is to be shared with others and passed down to our children. It can find repose on the open shelves of the den or the room of one’s house where people dwell, talk, and laugh. There the book waits and silently beckons the next reader to take down and begin the fellowship again. Books do not live in the sense people do. They are not souls. But books have a way of living longer than people. They span generations. In this they possess great power.