Yesterday, I started this short online course named Literature and Mental Health from the University of Warwick featuring prominent figures like Sir Ian McKellan and Stephen Fry. One of the introductory questions that is addressed to the reader is, ‘why do you read?’ It set me thinking and led to this post. I have always...

Books have been a big part of my life since childhood. The earliest memory I have of reading a book is when I was around five or six-years-old. It was a small collection of short stories for children; a collection, I suspect, I still have somewhere in the dark reaches of my groaning bookshelves. My...