Novel

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."~Jane Austen

There are several things in life that makes my nose twitch and my eyes sparkle...those rare, beautiful details that matter little or nothing to anyone else but me.

However, there's one thing in particular that tops my list. An elegantly worded, richly-toned book.

These books, however, are special. They're not the trashy, second-glance paperbacks that leave a sour taste of stilted thoughts and poorly invented cliches lingering on your tongue.

It's those classic books -- the ones that make the outside world fade away and welcome you into their worlds. The transition is so smooth that you barely realize that you have left the world of flesh and bone and faded into a world of fragrant ink and parchment pages.

Jane Austen. C.S. Lewis. William Shakespeare. The masters of literary elegance and intoxicating tales that are so vivid in color, taste, and tone that they can almost be touched.

They are the parents to breathtaking characters that remind us of ourselves -- all that we wish we could be, and all that we pray we are not. Creators of lands of such dazzling life, caressing breezes, and unending delights that we stand on the mountain's edge with arms spread wide, begging to be drawn in even deeper.

These are the places we long to be...our dreams encased in paper castles with doors of gilded secrets just waiting to be found.

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare. ~Kenko Yoshida