a good book!

You cannot fully read a book without being alone. But through this very solitude you become intimately involved with people whom you might never have met otherwise, either because they have been dead for centuries or because they spoke languages you cannot understand. And nonetheless, they have become your closest friends, your wisest advisors, the wizards that hypnotise you, the lovers you have always dreamed of.
~Antonio Nunoz Molina, The Power of the Pen~