You may have something about current trends on reading but I think the hunger for stories is still there, in whatever form. And glance around a bus or tube train and plenty of people have their noses in a book, usually fiction. Plus, Book Groups dedicated to sharing the business of reading are a fast-growing phenomenon. So let's not hold the wake for the novel just yet.

Personally, I want to cast my vote for long novels because they're my favourite. Especially for a good winter read on those early nights. I like a story that draws you into an extraordinary, fully drawn world and holds you there for a good long time. In the days or weeks that it takes you, you can experience whole lives vicariously. In fact, the only problem is that once I'm hooked I can't get on with my life at all till I've read the next chapter. And no film – let alone a Facebook posting – can replicate that pleasure. It's a virtual reality that I see and taste and my emotional journey with those characters is so much deeper for the time I spend wandering in their shoes.

In the past month, my addiction to novels seems to have really bitten hold. I've read all 9 Sookie novels, the latest detective story by Kate Atkinson and a beautiful Irish novel, The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry. So many lives, so many stories and still I'm hungry!
See http://siobhanlogan.blogspot.com/2010/02/hunger...