You have in your hands a masterpiece

When I was travelling the tube all those years ago I never needed to do any research to find out which book I should be reading next - all that was required was to look around at my fellow travellers. Their thumbed copies of The Beach or An Instance of the Fingerpost or The Starr Report took me to Books Etc on Piccadilly sooner than anything else.

Now the information comes other ways but best of all it comes from other readers. Serving in a bookshop you're never short of knowledge from the customers. They led me to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 11.22.63, Did You Really Shoot the Television? and far more. Even now I've only just started to read a copy of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, bought then for storage for today's rainy day.

The Hare with Amber Eyes slipped under the radar. Oh we were selling it ok, and it did well in hardback and softback, but I never traced it beyond the back cover which in the best tradition of great publishing gives absolutely nothing away but forces you to purchase. And even though I've offered reviews myself I'm not one for reading the words of others, preferring by far to be surprised when I'm given the book as a present or as a personal recommendation from someone who's read it themselves and has found out it's lengthened their lives.

Cassie lives opposite. She's the great great great grandniece of Jane Austen, and she's adorable. Did I slip too many greats in there...? ML and I and her share cat-sitting duties and she drinks Earl Grey. If there's a parcel to be taken in or a tradesman who needs giving money to envelopes will be slipped through letterboxes at dead of night without the need for words. She it was who offered me the Hare to read and she'd chosen it with care.

It disappeared in a swoop. I'd jotted her an email to thank her for its loan and said then that I didn't need to find time to read it, the time found itself, compelling me to get to the end of this triumphant, heart-rending story of a group of 264 netsuke figurines. Nah. It doesn't sound like a story, does it? See what I mean?

Edmund de Waal writes with the precision of a chemist and the eye of the artist he is. His favoured medium is porcelain. That's how he's achieved his life's success. But he fashions words just as beautifully and I'm grateful to him, and Cassie, and all the Ephrussi for a perfect read.