Between 1983 and 2003, Peter Bichsel did not often engage in public speeches, but when he did, his contributions were particularly striking, addressing authors and other well-known figures connected to books. Always, these occasions resulted in texts that speak of the joy of reading, the dangerous passion, and indeed the incurable addiction to being captivated by letters, words, and sentences. In his speeches about the opening of a bookstore, for the birthday of the publisher Siegfried Unseld, and on Jean Paul, Gottfried Keller, and Peter von Matt, Peter Bichsel demonstrates how seriously yet non-dogmatically he approaches books and what the solidarity of readers means to him: being together in the experience of reading with someone.