“When you love books and live with them daily, it’s tempting to believe they’re the answer. That whatever the crisis — war, pandemic, social delamination — books will be our lanterns and compasses, our balls of string leading out of the labyrinth. I think all this is true, and moreover that these primitive bundles of ragstock and ink still pulse with curious music, but twenty years on it’s plain that their greatest power is to move us toward each other.”

— Lief Enger, quoted in the Washington Post book newsletter, 9/2/21, in a foreword to the new 20th anniversary edition of his novel, Peace Like a River.