Second-hand bookshops weaned me

I always loved second-hand bookshops above all things - they were my true alma mater, not my university. But now I see that they are also the last bastions of freedom of speech.

The Bible and Shakespeare would not be published by any publishing house today if they were newly written. Dante consigns Mahomet to Hell, Chaucer is homophobic, Macaulay's opinion of Indians would not be printable, though he liked them, and as for Schopenhauer's views on women, well...

The Bible and all old books and the common law, which is a tradition that goes back to an earlier, era, will increasingly be what keeps freedom of thought alive. Second-hand bookshops are to our age what the monasteries, where monks copied Latin manuscripts, were to the Dark Ages.