The book industry is changing at digital speed. This compendium of more than three hundred quotations reminds us that centuries of treasured tradition are threatened by our current obsessions with e-books and other gadgets.

A room without books is a body without a soul.--Cicero

If you go into a room filled with books, even without taking them down from their shelves, they seem to speak to you, to welcome you.--William Gladstone

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them. . . . Let them be your friends.--Winston Churchill

There's something special about people who are interested in the printed word. They are a species all their own-learned, kind, knowledgeable, and human.--Nathan Pine, bookseller

Books deserve more than digital gas.--Bill Henderson, from the introduction