Louis L’Amour, famed writer of novels about the American West, wrote a short story that described a man who liked books. The man was noticed acting suspiciously as he perused the shelves in a library. He took down a leather-bound copy of Shakespeare’s King Lear and ran his fingers gently over the cover. He opened the book and felt the pages. Suddenly he tucked it under his coat and bolted out the door. Someone who had been watching him ran after the thief and stopped him. The man willingly surrendered the book. Then he explained. All his life he had loved books, but he had never learned to read. So he would come to the library just to hold books. He loved the way they felt in his
...