For
R. Sidney Bowen,
author of
Dave Dawson with the R.A.F.
and
Red Randall at Pearl Harbor
and so many others, for teaching me
the glory of the story sixty-odd years ago
A book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along and the words — or, rather, the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols — spring to life.