This may look like just a stack of books to the untrained observer, but it’s actually a photo of my passport.

Just by flipping open a beautiful book and drinking in the words and images it contains, I can be somewhere else in minutes, and completely alter my mood. No wonder there’s a history of book-burning – they’re practically hallucinogenics!

These books are some of the many I own which allow me to travel, first class, to places I’ve never seen, where I get to meet new people and peek inside amazing homes.

My books can take me anywhere – from the test kitchen of Aussie food guru Donna Hay to a breathtakingly beautiful French vista, or perhaps a weekend visit to the most famous home in America. I can cross borders, time travel and delve deep into other people’s artistry, or my own imagination.

I’ve always been a book lover. I don’t know why, or how, that happened, but I’m super grateful to be a bibliophile.

If you think I’m just a nutso bookworm who needs to get a life, I’ve got the backing of an esteemed doctor!

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!” — Dr. Seuss

And if you’re more of a rom-com lover, even the queen of that film genre has something to say about reading:

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.” — Nora Ephron

Thanks Doc, thanks Nora – I couldn’t agree more.

When was the last time a book transported you?

Where did you go?