The Solitude of Books

In a world obsessed with conversation, physical books bring us solitude and freedom.

“Dig” by Sadie Wendell Mitchell (1909). Public domain via Library of Congress.

Several years ago, I attended a talk by the Canadian poet Erín Moure. She talked about poetry and translation and writing. It was a talk so full of brilliant insights that, as I jotted things down in my notebook, I struggled to keep up. But after the talk, as I looked back at my hastily…