A lyrical and engaging piece. The beauty of the writer's language - it's almost a prose poem in parts - attests his love of words and the delicacy of the question: should those who love words ever destroy books? Funnily enough, I thought about publishers pulping their own remainders before I reached the mention of it. Does it help if words are recycled into words (new books) rather than another form of art? Or to think of books simply as a means of communication rather than the end? (I'm not imagining we are talking here of destroying knowledge by destroying books; that's something completely different.)  I'd rather focus on the words and the alchemy of reading that lifts them off their mechanical reproduction on the page to work their magic on the heart and mind. But to defile any book is symbolic of a negative reaction and that, I think, is why it feels uncomfortable.