And then some days you wake up and everything's perfect

You must do what you enjoy.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't learned how to crochet," I say, and Alice laughs. Obviously she thinks I'm joking, which is maybe for the best.

In eight years not a day has gone by when she hasn’t thought of him. She misses him and she wants him back. I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.

From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost . . . .

I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.

I've been a compulsive reader for as long as I can remember.