In an engaging essay “The East was Red,” published in today’s Guardian, Pankaj Mishra examines the Sovietphilia of his youth. (Thanks, Kitabkhana. The piece had appeared earlier in the Fall, 2005 issue of n+1 under the title “First Love.”) Pankaj’s essay pays homage to a childhood and youth shaped by reading. It also reveals what is wonderful about books. That even when they lead to fantasies–in this case, politics experienced as a fantasy–they grant a reader the pride of involvement and growth. It is satisfying to discover in such accounts that the inevitable disillusionment comes about not simply because of real events or history but also as a result of reading. This makes it possible to imagine the whole process not with a beginning and an end, and life not as merely mired in nostalgia, but as a long, continuous, productive relationship with books.