Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has also appeared in many articles. I want to highlight a few quotations of his about books and reading that I came across recently.
The first quotation, which is from Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door, speaks for itself; it says it all:
“...that love of books...is among the choicest gifts of the gods.”
Many people who are great readers would agree with this.
Sherlock Holmes says this about himself in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane:
“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.”
I too am an avid reader who sometimes remembers small details, even from books that I may not have read for decades. Many of the 'trifles' I recalled from the distant past have appeared in or even inspired various articles.
Another quotation from Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door comes very close to home:
“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”
While I will never forget the debt that I owe to public libraries, it really was great to have a small collection of my own books from an early age.
