There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

I shall start at the beginning. Though of coarse, the beginning is never where you think it is.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.