The Virtues of Book Ownership 真正拥有一本书

有人是“书非借不能读也”，而有的人则爱买书来读，要是再遇上千载难逢的好书，更是想方设法非要得到不可。可是，把书买到手，就真正拥有它了吗？“架上非无书，眼慵不能看”，有的人买了书却不一定会读；有的人读书时只动眼不走心，看完了合上了书，什么也不记得了；而有的人能从旧书边沿那零零散散的记号里找到旧时光的脚印，踩着那些痕迹，真正走进一本书的生命中…… “Can you spare a dollar so I can buy this book?” I heard a man’s deep voice ask this question as I raced up a flight of stairs, speeding my way to the second floor of the local public library to drop off some overdue books. His voice was coming from the library’s “sale room” on the first floor—a room that is little more than a closet but where you can score decent books and classics for a dollar or 50 cents. I couldn’t hear the response of the person he was talking to, but his question bounced around in my head for the rest of the day. I wondered if the individual from whom he’d asked for the loan might have asked why anyone would need to borrow money to buy a book when they were standing inside a library—where any book can be borrowed for free. Then I wondered which book he wanted to buy, and why, because some books are indeed meant to be held onto for longer than standard loan times, even forever. There are some books (ok, more like many books, especially in my house) that need to be owned outright. They need to be there on a shelf or in a pile, ready to be pulled out at just the right moment when you need the book (or when you don’t know you need the book until you start reading it again); you even need some of the books you’ve already read, because their presence can rekindle thoughts that were sparked by an earlier reading. Ownership has always been about more than having the means to purchase a book—though as the man in the library illustrated, the means is necessary to kick off the process. Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great Books program, explained in the 1940s exactly how you should go about reading a book and had this to say about book ownership: …………………… 想了解更多英语原文， 请关注微信公众号“Cassay小站”。