Ask an artist about light and you'll partake in a very detailed discussion that inevitably leads to colors.

For instance, I am told that the natural light in and around Europe several hundred years ago, during the time of the Dutch masters, had a green hue to it.

We know this from their paintings and journals.

Later, the light turned yellow.

In some places, it is uncannily white or blue, and occasionally both-for example near the sea or by an ocean.

I mention light and colors dancing in it because this interplay is what comes to mind when I think of the romance of books, especially brown-red tones of leather bound classics.

Books can be, of course, physically beautiful.

I would contend that as much if not more than their contents, it is their pallor, among other aesthetic, olfactory, and kinesthetic virtues that creates a certain emotional magnetism.

Authors are drawn to their dignity, to their curves and lines, to the touch and feel of them. Holding one by hand, or under one's forearm, we're in a romantic embrace that transcends generations and cultures.

The old admonition to not judge a book by its cover belies the visceral appeal of some books, while betraying our very nature. Just as Plato contended there is a perfect chair that all carpenters seek to channel and to bring into earthly form, there is a flawless book that some printers seek to produce, readers wish to read, and authors aspire to compose.

Being merely human, we very much judge books by their covers.

If we weren't so smitten with the sensory delights of bound books, the e-book would have already dispatched these forbears to the commercial graveyard.

It is an idealized portrait of books and the libraries that foster them that has many of us toiling without much monetary gratification in their service, and committed to their survival.

But for the LOVE OF BOOKS why would so many otherwise intelligent, educated and articulate folks dream of getting published?

Our appreciation and their beauty are a perfect match, like an artist and his model.

And when the light is just right, we lose all perspective, basking in the sublime.