Books were this wonderful escape for me because I could open a book and disappear into it, and that was the only way out of that house when I was a kid.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.
I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.
As a child, I loved story books and wanted to be in them so desperately and live the stories.
The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!
Storybooks were always a big part of my imagination, and my childhood and adolescence.
It had to be a book that held my attention and kept me wanting to read it; when my husband finished 'The Road', I started it straight away and didn't put it down until I finished - it was such an achievement and relief to know that I could read, comprehend and, most importantly, enjoy a book!
One of the great privileges of my life was growing up in a house without books.
I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.