So into this age of iPhones and iPads and Kindles comes Nicholas Basbanes’ book A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World. And we think we have problems. In ancient times, books were threatened by scarcity of materials, by fire-loving fanatics, by bookworms (the real thing) and by textual transmission. Instead of a book failing to jump from hardback to paperback or paperback to e-book, in the fourth century books might not make the cut from papyrus to parchment. My mind is filled this morning with phantom books of the past. What wisdom do we lack because some ancient author didn’t make the grade?