“reading for me is one of the central facets of existence. I cannot spend a day without a book. I have – in common with everybody – regular moments of mental unrest, roiling disquiet, uncertainty and anxiety. I manage them with a sedative, an analgesic: the escape into worlds created by other people. The invention of the novel, it seems to me, is one of the true triumphs of human endeavour. It codifies something magnificent within all of us: the act of empathy. When we read, we forge a connection with an author, and often then a common culture or tradition that is greater than us. Reading is an act of enlarging, of expansion. It makes our ‘I’ bigger than just ourselves; it stretches our sense of identity and experience.”