‘And , cization,“ Father said.

    It  ake forever; I rusting it to me. to tell trut tered, for in undertaking it, it was serious.

    It took me a  tember, ed, every lost book urned to its  only t, but—and in retrospect, t seems important-—my fingers act, albeit briefly, he shop.

    By time I eens, I ance t on quiet afternoons le real o do. Once tock sters ten, once o to read.

    Gradually my reading green I found myself meandering on teentury literature, biograpobiograpters.

    My faticed tion of my reading.  migeresting for me. stle books, in manuscript mostly, yelloied ring, sometimes  simply read tite for food gre. It ion.

    I am not a proper biograp I am  all. or my oen a number of s biograpudies of insignificant personages from literary ory. My invest ing biograpime and y. I like to disinter lives tat   of print for decades pleases me more t anything else.

    From time to time one of my subjects is just significant enougo rouse terest of a local academic publisions to my name. Not books. Not says really, a feapled in a paper cover. One of my essays—“ternal Muse,” a piece on t te in tandem—caugory editor and ing and teentury. It must  captured ttention of Vida inter, but its presence in tion is quite misleading. It sits surrounded by ters, just as t I am only a dilettante, a talented amateur.

    Lives—dead ones—are just a  to sell t—but to look after ten I take out a volume and read a page or ter all, reading is looking after in a ma