Bookworms are usually thought of as somewhat solitary, socially inept people. Websites such as BookCrossing like to portray books as a bridge between people, a means of connection for those with like minds, all over the world. Read a lot, they imply, and you will find literary company wherever you go. But, is it really true? Is a well-stocked bookshelf a way to win friends and influence people? Here are five interactions from the life of The Expositor. You be the judge: 1987: I was a messy kid. Rather than suggesting I brush my hair and make some friends, my father encouraged me to obtain a copy of a story about a magical woman named Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle who cured a girl of slobbery by planting radish seeds in the dirt in her ears. Unfortunately, the book was only available at the public library branch in Pawtucket, RI – maybe a twenty-minute drive from our home in Providence, but an Odyssey in the estimation of my Pennsylvania-bred father. Still, he loved his disheveled little bookworm, so he bundled me into his Volkswagen on a snowy winter evening and promptly got lost. A more reasonable person – such as my mother –
