I know I've had an unusual beginning and a colourful life, but that wouldn't matter if I couldn't make it speak to other people.

In a world where meaning is often absent or imposed, reading offers a dialogue with ourselves, with society, with history, and with the dead.

The Humans is a laugh-and-cry book. Troubling, thrilling, puzzling, believable and impossible. Matt Haig uses words like a tin-opener. We are the tin.

I remember once walking out hand in hand with a boy I knew, and it was summer, and suddenly before us was a field of gold. Gold as far as you could see. We knew we'd be rich forever. We filled our pockets and our hair. We were rolled in gold. We ran through the field laughing and our legs and feet were coated in yellow dust, so that we were like golden statues or golden gods. He kissed my feet, the boy I was with, and when he smiled, he had a gold tooth. It was only a field of buttercups, but we were young.

We're in a strange situation where people either don't read at all or they read a lot. There's a huge gap in between. That's something that would be good to bridge so it doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Books could be part of life in a more relaxed way. I'd like to see that.

When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.

Love is vivid. I never wanted the pale version. Love is full strength. I never wanted the diluted version. I never shied away from love's hugeness but I had no idea that love could be as reliable as the sun. The daily rising of love.