What is a golden line from John Lewis's Essay and why did you pick that?

the present continuous is a verb tense which is mainly used to indicates that an action is in progress at the moment of speaking.  

it is formed using: person + verb to be (am/is/are) +verb + - ing form  

example: i am studying at this moment .

in addition, the present continuous is also used in order to express things that will or will not happen in the near future.

example: i am having dinner with some friends tonight.

the speaker sometimes   uses it   to express that an action is repeated and it causes irritation on the part of the speaker

example: my sister is constantly complaining about everything.

the answer is:

when will (v) the books (n) be (v) due?

nouns refer to people (other than pronouns), places and things, whereas verbs describe actions and are usually part of the predicate of a sentence. finally, pronouns can work as nouns and identify the participants in speech.

in the example sentence, "will" is a verb part or auxiliary verb, "be" is an infinitive verb and "books" is a plural noun.

in the section of speech is not