Sunday, December 28, 2008

Beginning with Bacon

Let's begin this new blog with one of my favorite quotes about reading. I first saw these words posted outside a public library in Chicago.

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
- Sir Francis Bacon

Many books that are banned or challenged don't offer easy answers. In fact, sometimes they offer no answers...but they can offer a new way of looking at things. And a lot of people who try to ban books, I believe, simply don't trust individual readers to weigh and consider new points of view.

Now that we've got this first post out of the way, I'll be back in the new year with some thoughts of my own (as opposed to stealing the words of some guy who lived 400 years ago just so I could put something up today).