Books in the morning, 27 May 2020

A Zoom occasion yesterday evening, with wraith-like friends gathering in their homes, children and partners whisking past into a shadowy room. The backgrounds  are a study in themselves; one woman had chosen a video behind her of swirling Northern Lights, lifting her kindly face into a transcendental context. The comfort of books is another matter, steady and unblinking, not needing to be electrically charged and each page revealing a hidden text or picture when it is turned. Before the printing press books were very rare, so that a library might consist of twenty volumes. I once saw in the Coptic Museum in Cairo a small leather bound book of parchment that had been buried with a young woman of the fourth century as her most precious possession. It was the Gospel of John, written in beautiful rounded uncial forms of Greek. I hope the material and digital worlds can continue together.

Diana Wood Conroy 'Books in the morning', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 27 May, 2020.