From the Academy

The Impact of Books

This year’s or next year’s best-selling books, almost without exception, will be forgotten twenty years from now. For although books do influence all our lives profoundly—whether we have read those influential books or not—the particular books that change the world seldom are distributed by the big book clubs, nor do they often exercise their influence immediately. The books which have a real impact upon men’s opinions and upon the shape of society make themselves known only slowly and in subtle ways; and seldom more than a few thousand copies of them are sold, in the years immediately following their publication. Some such books are quite ignored or unknown for hundreds or even thousands of years, but then may suddenly be resurrected and exert a startling power, germinating after ages in the tomb, like grains of wheat buried with the Pharaohs in the pyramids and planted many centuries after the Pharaohs turned to dust.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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The Impact of Books

This year’s or next year’s best-selling books, almost without exception, will be forgotten twenty years from now. For although books do influence all our lives profoundly—whether we have read those influential books or not—the particular books that change the world seldom are distributed by the big book clubs, nor do they often exercise their influence immediately. The books which have a real impact upon men’s opinions and upon the shape of society make themselves known only slowly and in subtle ways; and seldom more than a few thousand copies of them are sold, in the years immediately following their publication. Some such books are quite ignored or unknown for hundreds or even thousands of years, but then may suddenly be resurrected and exert a startling power, germinating after ages in the tomb, like grains of wheat buried with the Pharaohs in the pyramids and planted many centuries after the Pharaohs turned to dust.