I have a guest bathroom on the ground floor not far from the kitchen. In it proudly display four books. They are one on top of the other. All four have influenced my life for the better. I will put links below to what I have written about them.

But most important is the first paragraph of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I think it is the most famous first paragraph of any book from that 20^th century.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Jane Rule’s first paragraph (part of it):

Writing an autobiography may be a positive way of taking my own life.

George Bowering – Canada’s first Poet Laureate writes on the opposite side of my portrait of him:

Look at the photograph. Look at the man in the photograph. Well there isn’t one. You are looking at a small two-dimensional something.

Harold Bloom in his book halfway through his photograph:

We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.

That Bloom paragraph defines my situation since my Rosemary died 6 years ago. I feel my family has fragmented and so many of my friends are now dead as I am 84.

On a more positive bent, last week I went to eat at Nando’s on 41^st(opposite Kerrisdale Cameras) with my daughter. I passed by Hager books and found this Ian Rankin pocket book that in many ways defines my present life. His Inspecter Rebus has retired and is no longer a policeman. He is depressed.

A positive bent? Yes! I been unable to read any books of late. I just stare at the ceiling with my female cat Niña by my side and I seem to turn off the lights earlier every evening. Not any more as I am reading at least one chapter of Rankin’s novel. Today I passed by Hager books and found another Rebus novel.

Yes books can have a powerful influence.