LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  I am no cultural prophet of doom, by any means, but the evidence is there for all to see: the physical book, the one with pages and covers, letters and illustrations, and increasingly expensive price tags, may have its days numbered. I know because I am witnessing something I would never have suspected in my youth: people getting rid of their libraries, as you can see in the picture my wife Rocío took yesterday evening of a nearby street dumpster. In my youth, people coveted books. They kept them, treasured them, and passed them on. If my grandfather had seen this picture of books tossed into a garbage bin, he would not have believed his eyes. I find it hard to believe mine. Those who bemoan the evident fact that people are reading less and less perhaps turn a blind eye to the more disturbing question: is the problem reading, or is it the book itself? Why? Television, mobile phones, iPads and e-readers may be some of the culprits. But there is something else worth pondering. In 1...

  Reading Irene Vallejo ´s best seller El infinito en un junco , brings Emilio Lledó ´s books to mind. Very uncanny, really. Many years ago I read Lledo´s El surco del tiempo , and I turn to this dogeared, profusely underlined volume often. Its subtitle is meditaciones sobre el mito plátonico de la escritura y la memoria . Another of Lledó´s book that has a similar theme is Los libros y la libertad , where we can read: "De mis libros, de las bibliotecas que he frecuentado, aprendí el diálogo y la libertad de pensar. Durante siglos, fueron los libros los vencedores del carácter efímero de la vida." Vallejo y Lledó have a lot in common, except that the latter is a philosopher. I recommend both. 

  My first encounter with a real Library was at Duquesne University . In Madrid, I was too young to have access to the Biblioteca Nacional and older friends borrowed books for me to read, like Nietzsche's Aurora ( Dawn ), I recall. So, entering the Library at Duquesne University was a discovery, a deep satisfaction to see so many books on their shelves, at my fingertips. To this day, in a Library -now I visit the Biblioteca Nacional as a researcher-, I feel at home, at peace. I secured a part-time job at Duquesne University Library , (50 cents an hour) granted to me by the Librarian , Mrs. McCann . At odd times, between classes, I would log in for some hours there, cataloging books, microfilming the LC Cards from the Catalog Files, and having first access to all the incoming books to be cataloged and classified. Being a member of the staff, I could borrow all the copies I wanted, and even have access to the titles in the Index Expurgatorius , where Sartre was included then. Wha...