Hours between books

What are these hours among books, and what could be the outcome that we extract from them in general? Are they hours cut off for scrolls and inkwells, in which we turn from the living, pulsating world to another world of letters and papers? Are they hours among books; because they are not hours among the living, as those who divide time into two parts might imagine: an hour for the heart and an hour for the Lord, between them is a barrier where the constellations do not mingle, and which these do not cross into those? I would like to say briefly and emphatically: No! In my "craft of knowledge," papers have no substance other than flesh and blood. For me, the library—whatever its deposits—is not isolated from this life witnessed by the passerby, and felt by everyone who senses within himself a pounding throb, a raging heart, and a memory in which the echoes of existence ring. In my opinion, the book that is truly worthy of the name "book" is that which was a part of its owner in his most awakened times, his most complete forms, and his most beautiful styles. It is life seen through a human mirror that colors it with its colors and shades it with its shadows. It appears to you beautiful or ugly, great or small, beloved or hated, so you take for yourself its pure essence and return with it as one living being in several lifetimes, or several living beings in one lifetime. - Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad