“She either confused me with a much older child or else she glimpsed deep inside my soul and perceived a hole that needed filling. I've always chosen to believe the latter. After all, it's the librarian's sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader.”

“After all, it's the librarian's sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader.”

“In each man's heart there lies a hole. A dark abyss of need, the filling of which takes precedence over all else.”

“I probably coughed self-pityingly in response, little aware that I was about to cross a tremendous threshold beyond which there would be no return, that in my hands I held an object whose simple appearance belied its profound power. All true readers have a book, a moment, like the one I describe, and when Mum offered me that much-read library copy mine was upon me.”

“All true readers have a book, a moment when real life is never going to be able to compete with fiction again.”

“She's one of the few people able to look beyond the lines on my face to see the twenty-year-old who lives inside.”

“Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn't shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong. But surrender she did. Let herself drop through the rabbit hole and into a tale of magic and mystery ...”