When your passion is reading and your world revolves around books and publishing, it's easy to forget that not everyone thinks the same way. But when so much seems to revolve about newly released books in the media, in news and entertainment, in festivals and events, it seems surprising that a recent survey has found reading is declining.
A YouGov poll published earlier this year has found that 40 per cent of Britons have not read a book in the last year.
When attention spans are ever decreasing and anxiety is on the rise, I suppose this is to be expected in some ways. But now more than ever we should be losing ourselves in novels and informing ourselves through well-researched, well-crafted non-fiction.
The novelist Elif Shafak has spoken and written extensively on this subject over the years and has commented again in the 'Guardian' this weekend. Her message is worth repeating.
'We live in an era in which there is too much information but not enough knowledge, and even less wisdom,' she writes. 'An excess of information makes us arrogant and then it makes us numb.
'For knowledge we need books, slow journalism, podcasts, in-depth analyses and cultural events. And for wisdom, among other things, we need the art of storytelling. We need the long form.
'The long form contains insight, empathy, emotional intelligence and compassion.
'It seems to me that the more chaotic our times, the deeper is our need to slow down and read fiction. In an age of anger and anxiety, clashing certainties, rising jingoism and populism, the division between "us" and "them" also deepens. The novel, however, dismantles dualities.'
I hope we'll all make time this week to sit down with a good book.
(Or perhaps you'll get a ticket to come along and hear historian and novelist Alison Weir at The Riverside in a few days' time, taking us back to Tudor times and combining fact and fiction in her tale of the life of Cardinal Wolsey.)
What better antidote to the confusion of today's news than to immerse ourselves in a story, and know that not only is it a balm and an escape, but it is building us and equipping us for the challenges we face ahead.
Thank you for reading.