How does it feel

“I know what people are thinking because my job has often been to be the one thinking it. To be a professional reader—critic, editor, biographer—means thinking for other people. Different writers: why this book, why now? Different places: will this Dutch novel work in Minnesota? Different times: is a book from 1960 still fresh? Different sexes: will women read a book by this man? So I worry when, with these perspectives in mind, I read about our lives.”

Words of Benjamin Moser for the publication of his life-partner Arthur Japin’s personal diaries.