It occurred to me recently, as I was enjoying a good book (a Ken Follett novel, as it happens), how comparatively little people seem to read these days. Of course, with the ubiquity of the internet and the ease of finding information, listening to music or watching films online there is probably less of an incentive for people to read for pleasure.

That’s a shame, since to many of us, reading is a great source of pleasure and relaxation. Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid user of computers and the internet and, like most of us, I cannot really imagine life without the internet, sad though that admission may be.

However nothing beats the sheer thrill of escaping into a good novel, briefly leaving the real world and using one’s imagination to enter another dimension. A book can be anything you want it to be, educational, thought provoking and stimulating. It can make you laugh, make you cry and scare the living daylights out of you. When I read “Jaws” by Peter Benchley back in 1975 I didn’t dare take a bath for a week! Mind you I was a student then and times were hard!