I’ve recently had an infectious quote ringing in my head for weeks, one of those quotes that robs you of your peace and just won’t go away. 

Around about the 1950s, the American literary establishment, never exactly nimble on its feet, noticed that its world had changed about a decade earlier. 

When I read Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” when it first came out at the beginning of 2019, I was pleased by its intelligence but baffled by its pessimism. In the book, Newport urges his readers to “detox” themselves from addictive social media and prune the electronic elements out of their lives.

For reasons that have always completely eluded me, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, author of such works as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and “The Man in the High Castle,” garnered a devoted fan following during his career and has maintained that following since his death in 1982.

With the sole exception of my role as manservant to my bossy little Miniature Schnauzer, my life is entirely about books. I read them, of course, a tidy little pile of them every week – both the many new and forthcoming titles I get from publishers and the unpredictable variety I find in charity shops and second-hand bookshops.