Books have always been my escape from daily life and now they are my daily life.

Stories are timeless. They spill through ages, times, genders, races, religions, nationalities. They unite us. With the world the way it is at the moment, they’re one of the only things we’ve got left that does. People are still reading books that were written hundreds of years ago. Children are still brought up with fairy tales that date back to centuries we can’t even imagine living in. That’s magic of a different kind.

Books connect us in a world where a lot of connections are broken nowadays. They can help us, heal us, break us and put our broken pieces back together again. They can make us believe in magic. In love. In anything.

Books are magical in that they can transport you to another time and place, introduce you to people you come to know as friends, in both characters, authors and now in real people who, at some point in their lives, have chosen each book as carefully selected gifts for someone they cared about.