Escape routes, paths to enlightenment: books create enticing worlds before which everyday realities fade away. The reading woman is a beautiful enigma, an untold tale, a fragment of a life momentarily set free from its long, complex story. Quotations by women on the subjects of books and reading complement twelve lovely images by Robert James Gordon, Walter Langley, Christian Eriksen Skredsvig, Jules Ernest Renoux, William Frederick Yeames, Edmund Blair Leighton, Ambrosius Benson, Harold Harvey, and others.
