About Nicholas A. Basbanes:
Nicholas Andrew Basbanes is an American author who writes and lectures widely about 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) and the invention of paper and its effect on civilization (On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History).