"As a kid, I loved nothing more than my mum running errands on a Saturday, because she would drop me off at the local bookshop while she did so. It was a glorious moment, to enter that bookshop: the door jangled, the smell of the books hit, the bookseller called a greeting from behind shelves, and I went off to find them for recommendations for my next adventure. 
And then, for two to three hours, I was gone, deeply absorbed in some new series (I had an intense The Famous Five phase, a hardcore Tintin phase, a Redwall era).
"I was always late being picked up afterwards. Mum had to toot the horn to bring me back to earth. I never understood--and still don't understand--quite what happens to time, when plunged in a book's pages. (Are they books or are they spells?)"