title: The Joy of Books
author:  Eric Burns 
description: "People don't read much anymore," laments former TV newsman Burns (Broadcast Blues) in this modest but wide-ranging set of musings on reading and writing. A self-described amateur in the best sense, Burns earnestly surveys the foundation of the oral tradition and the rise of censorship in the ancient world and, more recently, a Midwestern book burning he witnessed. He delves into the motivations of such writers as Benjamin Franklin and William Faulk-ner, proffering his own thoughts on the inspiration behind writers he favors, for example, Kazuo Ishiguro and Tom Wolfe. While Burns rightly bemoans "aliteracy"-the unwillingness of so many people to read-his criticism of higher education and literary deconstructionists is more curmudgeonly than thoughtful. Serious readers, Burns observes, always have a refuge; indeed, after an account of his young son's path to reading, he concludes with a list of 581 books-classic and contemporary, fiction and nonfiction-that he has enjoyed. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  B
  e g i n  Re a d i n g
  Table of Contents
  A Preview of Legend Has It
  A Preview of Chasing Embers
  Orbit Newsletter
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  To my mother. These aren’t your kind of
  books, but if I’m doing my own thing it’s
  because I know you’ll love me anyway, and
  that is the most precious gift any parent can
  give.
  
  Why should I be dismayed
  Though ﬂame had burned the whole
  World, as it were a coal,
  Now I have seen it weighed
  Against a soul?
  —From “A