Why buying books is a bargain

I just read the following comment on author Garrett M. Graff’s yearly book list. This was the only place I knew I could share it and have people understand that I was nodding so vigorously as I read I sprained my neck:

“I thought several times this year while reading a particularly good book about what amazing bargains books still are — for $20 or $30 bucks, and often even just $5 or $10 used — you can dive into an entire world created by someone else over years of work, research, and creativity. You can have decades, centuries, and even millennia of knowledge, information, discoveries, and history summarized and explained for you by some of the smartest people in the world for the price of a couple cups of coffee. You can spend an entire weekend (or a few nights or even a couple weeks) soaking and subsuming yourself into worlds that you couldn’t have imagined before you picked up the book, getting to know characters and human experiences more intimately than you will ever know most of the people you interact with in real life. You can sit on your couch, or in your favorite chair, or an airplane or bus seat, and be transported vividly to some of the most dramatic moments and turning points of humanity. And then, afterward, you’ll never be the same person you were before reading. What better bargain of self-improvement, happiness, and knowledge is there in the world?”