Joseph Brodsky, the great Russian poet who died at the sadly young age of 56, on receiving his Nobel Prize in the Grand Hall of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm in December, 1987, declared a great truth: “There is no doubt in my mind that, should we have been choosing our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programmes, there would be much less grief on earth.”
I think that is true. But, more importantly, I have never had any doubt that a person has a better chance of leading a successful and happy life and making a contribution as a good citizen if he or she is well read.
If one had the power to give a child a single gift, the gift to choose would be a love of reading. That is a gift which
