“What better thing is there than to be part of a process that brings such delight to so many? People of all ages and temperaments love reading, love crawling under the covers, turning on the bedside light, and opening to the place where they left off. Think of it:  grandmothers in their nighties, handsome young men wearing tortoiseshell glasses, teenage girls with fluorescent-colored braces, couples who break a rich silence to read passages aloud to each other, convicts who can at least escape in this way — all these people find solace and joy in the pages of a book. Also priests, Bookies, Photographers, Engineers, Cowgirls, Astronauts, Drycleaner clerks. Somebody from everywhere loves reading. And it’s writers who give them the gift of this deeply felt pleasure.”

                            Elizabeth Berg, Escaping into the Open