In which episode does a man just want to read books but his glasses break?

The episode in which a book-loving man finally gets time to read, only for his glasses to break, is “Time Enough at Last.” It is the eighth episode of the original The Twilight Zone, first broadcast on November 20, 1959.

Burgess Meredith plays Henry Bemis, a timid bank employee whose wife and boss constantly interrupt or criticize his reading. During his lunch break, he hides inside the bank vault and survives a nuclear blast that devastates the outside world. When he discovers that he may be the last person alive, he initially considers suicide.

Bemis then finds a ruined library whose books have survived. His dream appears to have come true: he has endless time and countless books. As he walks down the library steps to begin reading, however, his glasses fall and shatter. The episode’s famous irony is that solitude gives him everything he wanted except the ability to use it.

The story was adapted from Lynn Venable’s 1953 short story. It is often remembered as a warning about cruel fate rather than a conventional moral tale.