We read to find out what the world is like, to experience lots of lives, not just the one we live. If it is true that our lives are chaotic and we cr….

I learned that books could be collected, that they were important enough to keep and that a story that seemed to be over could be part of a bigger on….

But, in the end, the books that surround me are the books that made me, through my reading (and misreading) of them; they fall in piles on my desk, t….

It was disconcerting for the novel to seem so different when I re-read it. Of course we are a different person each time we open a book to read it ag….

True browsing means that we discover shelves and subjects that we could not have anticipated when we started. And the books we read introduce us to o….

Books that recount ordeals are precious because an ordeal is what we most fear, and the stories that tell us how to survive them reassure us about wh….

That's what reading was for my mother, and became for me - a way to escape, a private time machine, a place that began with moral instruction but soo….

Not only does art imitate life but life imitates art. Perhaps we not only learn about life from stories, perhaps we make our lives through the storie….

I realised that reading was the key that opened the door to secret lands, strange places and the worlds behind other people's eyes..

Can we really be friends with those who don't love the books that we do? Of course we can, but can we really be friends with those who don't love any….

That's what is so precious in reading this way - you can plumb the depths of another's experience while sitting still with a book in your hands..