"Beware of the Man of One Book." ~ Anonymous

"That night I dream of a woman in a white sari holding a baby in her arms. The wind howls behind her, making her hair fly across her face, obscuring it. She places the baby in a laundry bin and leaves."~ Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup page 65

This is where I am in my current book.  Reading, is that little gift I give myself 15-20 minutes each night before I shut my eyes for the evening.  I also rescue old books from flea markets and junk shops.  My current prize is a book revised and written in 1855 - Shakespeare's Works with Memoirs.  I got it for a mere $3.00.  I'm pretty sure the 18 year old that sold it to me had no idea what it was.  Perhaps it was from some one's book collection who had just passed on and there it sat in a junk shop discarded by relatives who didn't see its worth or importance. 

Of course, my fear that books will slowly be discarded and turn to dust in some junk shop comes from all the miscellaneous statistics that state over and over again that people are turning away from reading.  That maybe it was becoming a lost art in a world that moves at a fast pace.  However, the article Reading on the Rise states that:

"There were 16.6 million new adult readers of literature in 2008."

That is a remarkable find.  The total number of adult readers was 112.8 million or 50.2%.  Which correlates with the Wikipedia total population of the U.S. which was 310, 585,000.  Its a direction, a good direction for adults to take in my opinion.  In this high paced, stress induced society a few moments to kick back and open one's mind to a whole new world is what we need.