Book lovers like to display their books. It's natural to want to see something you have invested hours or even weeks in. As such, a library can represent a substantial expenditure of time and money. Why wouldn't you want to display it to your friends and keep it around as a reminder of long hours of enjoyment? Yet, a digital library might do away with all of that. A physical library, even a few shelves in a living room, has given off the aura of sacred space ever since Alexandria; and in the west, at least ever since monks started keeping a hundred or so hand copied manuscripts locked up the cupboard.

We now have a whole generation of iPod users who are completely comfortable with keeping an expansive library of songs digitally. Not so long ago, people would mull over, sort and finger through their collections of LPs and CDs with the same kind of reverence they kept for book libraries. Might we see a complete shift with electronic books as we have with music? Granted music is an entertainment and may not be due the same kind of reverence we accord a book of philosophy, history or literary criticism. Most serious readers would credit certain books with having changed the way they live or see the world. But then again, some people have that kind of reverence for an ABBA song.

Possession and property are a big part of having a library. Can you really feel the same way about a piece of software that offers crappy images of shelves (which inevitably look like Ikea pressed board) with awkwardly aligned book covers? What happened to the spines? Once books are consumed maybe there are only mental. Isn't knowledge only something carried in your head? While it is in a book, it is only potential knowledge; perhaps that too is part of its charm. Peter Kien in Auto da fé held his knowledge as a library, each day unpacking the books from his head and laying them out in his room before going to sleep; only to pick them up one by one and stack them again in his head when he left the next day. I think we would all like to be like Mr. Kien with his ability of recall; to, at will, be able to have the sensation of going through our bookshelves, of feeling the back of each book you have read and recalling through your fingertips how they have touched or influenced you. Most of us can't do that sort of thing straight out of our heads; we need the physical reminders. Maybe that is why we like to display our books and give the library of the mind a space in our homes? Everyone deserves a physical space – even a book – like we offer up to a cat or a dog, who, although not capable of communicating in the same way, will, if you approach and attend quietly, may tell you many things.

in The New York Review of Books (Jul 15, 2010)

Christian Caryl surveys the latest literature on what life must be like in secretive North Korea: Nothing to envy by Barbara Demick; The hidden people of North Korea by Ralph C.Hassig and The cleanest race by B. R. Myers.

AND

Karl Rove gets the chance to set the record straight on all the dirty tricks others have attributed to him (Bush's Brain; Machiavelli's shadow) . See David Bromwich's review of Rove's Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight