I wonder whether I’m alone in finding that some books which I used to love no longer hold the same attraction? This can be very disappointing; a bit like going off a lover you thought you’d be with for life. My worst disappointment was The Forsyte Saga. In my early twenties, I absolutely adored this book, which runs into several volumes, and which I took everywhere with me until I’d finished it (them). But on trying it again a few years ago on holiday, I couldn’t even get through the first chapter. What on earth had I seen in it which was no longer there? I will never know.

But some novels – reassuringly – elicit the same response from me as they ever did. I re-read Emma recently (for the umpteenth time, it has to be said), and still love it, and Sense and Sensibility was just as silly as I’d thought it was when I read it in my teens. And favourite children’s books still hold their magic: The Secret Garden, Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, Little Women. It seems that it’s the books I read in my teens and early adulthood that seem different. Or maybe it’s just that I am…