William Styron’s “Havanas in Camelot” reviewed by Michiko Kakutani—reveals love of libraries as place of refuge

Read Michiko Kakutani’s review of William Styron’s “HAVANAS IN CAMELOT:Personal Essays,” in today’s N. Y. Times by clicking here. [You may be asked to log in.] Kakutani’s review essay is titled, “Styron’s Essays Give Glimpses Into a Life Spent in Good Company”

Here’s a quoted excerpt I particularly liked, because it articulates how I feel inside library walls…sort of cloistered, as if I’ve taken holy orders:

“The library became my hangout, my private club, my sanctuary, the place of my salvation; during the many months I was at Duke, I felt that when I was reading in the library I was sheltered from the world and from the evil winds of the future; no harm could come to me there.”–from Havanas in Camelot

Kakutani comments:

“This love of books, this veneration of the printed word as a source of wisdom, redemption and refuge animates many of Styron’s essays in this volume, conjuring that era in which the author came of age, when young, aspiring artists regarded novel-writing as an almost holy profession….”