More Christ Episode Forty Two: Nicholas Basbanes: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Love of Books

Welcome to More Christ, where we seek to bring some of the world's most interesting and insightful guests to discuss life's central and abiding questions.  In this forty second episode in a series of discussions, I'm joined by the brilliant Nick Basbanes.  Nicholas Andrew Basbanes is an American author who writes and lectures widely about authors, books and book culture. His subjects have included the "eternal passion for books" (A Gentle Madness); the history and future of libraries (Patience & Fortitude) the "willful destruction of books" and the "determined effort to rescue them" (A Splendor of Letters) "the power of the printed word to stir the world" (Every Book Its Reader) the invention of paper and its effect on civilization (On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History) and an exploration of Longfellow's life and art (Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).