Saturday Rave: the book.

Not The Book, as in the Bible (though I can't deny it has some jolly good stuff in it) but the book - the multiplicity of paperback, hardback, cloth book, pop-up, illustrated, versified, mapped, indexed story of romance, betrayal, lust, greed, sacrifice, prejudice, war, romp, anguish, triumph, tragedy and all.

Michael Deacon has recently summed up the lure - well, one lure - of the book most economically and beautifully.

On the 24th August 2019 in the Telegraph newspaper he wrote:

That's what a book is, at heart: a refuge for introverts. It's a way to learn about life without having to take part in it. To learn about people, without having to touch them.

And he's right. Because there's nowhere safer, really, than a book.

Word To Use Today: book. This word comes from the Old English bōk. It's basically the same word as beech (as in the tree) because people used to write on its bark.