Did I really read every single book in the school? My mother maintains I did. Maybe I just told the teachers I had and they all believed me. Maybe this is where the lying about books really began. Where were the checks and balances? I blame the authorities.

When we find a painting or a novel or a musical we love, we are briefly connected to the best that human beings are capable of, in ourselves and others, and we are reminded that our path through the world must intersect with others. Whether we like it or not, we are not alone.

As a parent, it has been instructive to discover that the deep, instinctive love I feel for my own child is counterbalanced by the antipathy I feel towards other people’s children.

We are creatures made as much by art as by experience and what we read in books is the sum of both.

That’s the trouble with stereotypes: they are not wholly disconnected from the truth.

Somebody once described the Internet as a library where all the books have been taken off the shelves and dumped in the middle of the floor. Disorganisation, however, is not the issue. The Internet is the greatest library in the universe; unfortunately someone has removed all the ‘no talking’ signs.

All these sorts of book feature in The Year of Reading Dangerously, which could yet be called Fifty Shades of Great.

Is it wrong to prefer books to people? Not at Christmas. A book is like a guest you have invited into your home, except you don’t have to play Pictionary with it or supply it with biscuits and stollen.

The writer in me was stirring again, pushing the editor aside.

On average, everyone has read The Da Vinci Code. You have probably read it. Even if you have not read it, statistically you have.