I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

Then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there were better love stories around? Stories not riddled with ill-adjusted men, anguish, death and graveyards!

Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.