What is a book? As defined by dictionary.com, a book is "a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers."
At some point I will have a massive library in my home packed full of quality literary works. Douglas Callister would approve of me having this:
"Is there a generation today that needs to be superficially entertained? What is the prospect of a young man sitting in a dorm on Friday evening to read a great book and be thrilled by the music of the masters? Is Friday evening a frenetic flight to see where the entertainment and action will be? Could our society produce a Newton or a Mozart? Can 85 channels and uncountable DVDs ever fill our insatiable appetite to be entertained? Do any unwisely become addicted to computer games or Internet surfing, thereby missing the richer experiences of great reading, conversations, and music enjoyment?"1
And here is some of that "great reading" in action:
"To write the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons and hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary circles, as in Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears within him, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of his brain and the actions of his life!"2
There are so many things to read, learn, and accomplish that I will never have time for any of it. Thank heaven that heaven will have all the best (and only the best) of these things.
1 From Your Refined Heavenly Home by Douglas Callister
2 From Les Miserables by Victor Hugo