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'The secret pleasure'

27 November 2006

'Books transported me to a place that was filled with endless possibilities, and it was all so much better than whatever it was I was doing in real life. I loved a good story and still do, but as I got older I realised that reading was far more than that. It was the secret pleasure and intimacy of having a relationship with a writer and his characters long after I'd closed the book. Books taught me about other people, what they were feeling, how they viewed the world and how they changed from ordinary beings to extraordinary ones. Often I preferred spending time with them to doing anything else.'

Jennifer Kaufman, author of Book Lover, in the Sunday Telegraph's Stella