A Good Book...

It is often said that you are never alone if you have a good book at hand. There have been many times in my life when I have found this to be all too true. When unemployed and not in a position to go out much I made great use of the local travelling library, a public service like so many others that seems to have deteriorated over the years in terms of the service that it offers. A good book can take you out of your mundane existence and take to places that you wouldotherwise never have gone and brings you into contact with people, real or imaginary, that you would never otherwise have met and opens you up to ideas that you would never otherwise have encountered.

Now we have the internet and ebooks and bookson CD and podcasts of books and a whole vast world of literature is available to us by electronic means that those alive at the invention of the printing press, or even when the elder amongst us could never have imagined when young. Despite all that there is nothing quite like sittting down in a quiet place with a favorite novel, or the anticipation of opening a highly recommended new one.