Fiction soothes me. A good memoir is enjoyable enough and I like reading about current affairs, history and politics. Yet nothing compares with escaping into a novel.
A novel never fails to reassure me that, despite all my supposed woes, I am merely suffering from being human. A great novelist's genius is to write imaginary experiences with such accurate understanding of our universal condition that we recognise ourselves immediately in the characters’ responses to what life throws at them. Fiction helps
