Books were hard to get for the mountain men among the western settlers. Sometimes a mountain man would carry a single battered book with him for years. Some of the men had Bibles, and even more had Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare was a favorite with mountain men, even if they could not read. When they found someone who could read, he was often asked to read one of Shakespeare’s plays to a group over a campfire. There were mountain men who could not sign their own names, but could quote passages of Shakespeare by heart.

How does the author of the above passage show that books were important to mountain men?