Books on the shelving
and books on the table;
Reading great books at night
long as I'm able;
Books in the winter, fall, summer and spring:
These are a few of my favourite things.

All right, so I'm not a songwriter. But I am a bibliophile--a lover of books. My single favourite thing to do, outside of being with my family, is reading.

"When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and the ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a good book."
—Christopher Morley

As a young boy, the hall light was always on outside my bedroom door. For years I would read, long after my bedroom lamp was turned off, by putting a book on the floor where the hall light shone, and reading while hanging over the side of the bed.

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
— Jorge Luis Borges

I grew up in a rather poor family. Money to purchase books was sparse. Consequently I grew to love the local library. There a treasure trove of adventure and fun awaited me. In my teen years (when computers were virtually non-existent and Al Gore hadn't invented the internet), one either read or watched television. We couldn't afford a TV either, so I visited the library two to three times a week. I filled up my ten-cent library card so often, I should have run a tab.

"I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book."
— Groucho Marx

Curiously, the young woman I met and eventually married is the daughter of a bookstore owner. My late father-in-law, Jake Martin, ran a bookstore in Ottawa for over 50 years. As a young professor, my very first academic publication was a book review. While my students considered me to be a pretty good teacher, my first love was research--because then I could read widely and even get paid for it. What I consider to be my highest academic achievement was the writing of my first book.

"Books tap the wisdom of our species—the greatest minds, the best teachers—from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient."
— Carl Sagan

We read to our children every night from age two on. Both were themselves reading by the time they entered kindergarten. They continue to love books and have goodly personal libraries.

"There may be no more pleasing picture in the world than that of a child peering into a book—the past and the future entrancing each other."
— Roger Rosenblatt

To say the least, I was thrilled to be at Abbotsford Middle School this week where the formal announcement was made of the Love of Reading grant of $100,000 over three years by Indigo/Chapters. 100,000 smackers to spend on the library. That amounts to about 20 times the budget that their library technician, Sheri Kling (pictured above), would normally have to spend over that period. I imagined Sheri, with Uncle Scrooge's money bin in tow, heading for the nearest bookstore.

"Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books—they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future, and a past."
— Esther Meynell

Congratulations to Abby Middle principal Ian Levings, his wonderful teaching staff and support staff, for winning this lucrative and prestigious grant. Props as well to Chapters for this fabulous reading initiative. And best wishes to Sheri as she immerses herself in that most edifying experience--buying books! I'm green with envy!!

"Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier."
— Kathleen Norris