When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There are reasons people seek escape in books, and one of those reasons is that the boundary of what can happen is beyond what we do - or would want to see in real life.
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
When a book is going well, it tells you where to go.
There comes a point when you're writing a novel when you're in it so deep that the life of the novel becomes more real to you than life itself. You have to write your way out of it; once you're there, it's too late to abandon.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
Occasionally, I just need to escape from my work or be reminded of the comparative bliss of my own life, so I pick up a novel.
Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.
You have to be a lover of books without expecting more of them than they give - a little pleasure, a little insight, a moment of escape, a deepening of your own humanity. Not much else.
Like many readers, I am continually in search of books that allow me to lose myself in an entirely unique universe.
As a writer, you live in such isolation. It's hard to imagine your book has a life beyond you.