I cherish the physical form of a book (any book almost) almost as much as the words or images contained. Most delightful are old, worn, treasured tomes, with all their ensuing sensory experiences.

Covers of hard tooled leather or grained fabric backed card for fingertips to trace. Perhaps loved too much, bearing evidence of past hands and homes; inscriptions or plates inserted inside covers, scribbles in the margins illustrating the readers involvement. Edges gold leafed, pages gossamer thin, torn or lost, yellowing or folded down.

Evocative smells held within, scents of dusty, musty library shelves or second hand shops where they languished. Long lost treasures flutter from within forgotten pages like some gilded sliver of a long lost love.

Words, lyrical or logical can tumble full of meaning or confusingly obtuse before my eyes and be rolled around inside my mouth and my head.

No computer held file, magazine or newspaper can be put down and picked up again, hours, days, weeks or years later, and evoke the same rush of familiar emotions.