When was the last time you were so absorbed in a book that you couldn't stop reading? And what was the book? The last time this happened to me was, well, yesterday; with Gaskell's North and South. The one before that was Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, I think.

And what really interests me is this: Do you enjoy it when it happens? I'm always longing for it, anticipating it when I open a new book; and while I'm reading such a book I get this wonderful, euphoric feeling. But I always feel terrible afterwards. Right now I'm suffering from post-reading depression over North and South. It seems so unfair: I didn't even like the main characters at first, but then I ended up caring for them so much that it hurts. Not only is it tiring to stay up and read till 4a.m. or so, but it's draining to live through their sorrows and joys, only to be left with -- nothing! The characters leave you; you close the book, and the door to that world closes. You're no longer part of that imaginary world, and you don't really belong to the real world either. It hurts.

Does anybody else feel like this, or am I just abnormal?

Fredegonde, I've never really thought about it in those terms before. I do get swept of my feet. I can still remember the smell of the carpet under the bed, where I was lying to finish Jane Eyre so that my grandmother wouldn't find me and chase me out of doors. I read fast, too - Jane Eyre took a day, and there were about 10 or 15 years before I had children when I could honestly say that I'd never gone to bed at night leaving a book unfinished (not that I was trying to read War and Peace, admittedly).

Then there are the times when you finish something, baggy-eyed, at 3 in the morning, and still go back and read the beginning (or the Introduction if it's a Penguin Classic) because you can't/won't let go of it and turn off the light.

But I'm not sure I altogether do enjoy that feeling while I'm experiencing it. I feel guiltily that I don't read as much good, interesting and challenging stuff as I should, and yet when I do, I'm always so, so glad I did. But I think that I shy away from feeling that much. I shrink from being so over-taken, don't want my blood pressure to rise or to cry or to mind so much about what happens. So I grab an old friend of a detective story or a Heyer off the shelf instead.

Emma

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To do my grandmother justice, she was a great reader, and had a good story of going to stay as a teenager with friends on the west coast of Ireland, pre electricity and no gas either. After her hostess popped in to say goodnight and blew out her bedside candle, Granny didn't have the nerve to re-light it. But her thriller's hero was in dire trouble, so she read it by the flashes of the nearby lighthouse until he was safe, and only then went to sleep.

My reactions to the novels I read have changed since I started to write seriously and, on the whole, I think for the worse. Before, I used to lose myself entirely in a book and experience it very directly but now I find that I am much more analytical, trying to figure out what the writer is doing to make this work so well or what it is that makes me dislike it. Sometimes it still happens that I get drawn in so much that I forget all that - it happened recently with 'A Fine Balance' - but it's much rarer.
I think it's a bit like living abroad for me. Now, when I go home, I find myself assessing the differences between it and elsewhere, trying to understand why those differences exist whereas before when I was at home, I just lived and everything felt normal and right without even thinking about it.
Sorry, I know that I've gone off on a slight tangent.

No, I think it's relevant. It's all very well cultivating that sense of standing-back - slight alienation, even - from our own experience, but it is a kind of lost innocence. When you can't help watching everything you experience as well as experiencing it, can you really say that the experience is truly authentic?

I still haven't trained myself to do the technically-aware reading that one should, except as a conscious effort. I have to go back and read the whole darn thing again, if I really want to know how an author's done it, or decide which bits don't quite work.

It's like the difference between being a two-year-old and discovering an earthworm, wriggling and squirming out of the ground and being a parent of that two-year-old watching her face, amazed and concentrated, as you put it on the palm of her hand. (It happened to me this weekend and I was thinking that at the time.) Which is the 'better' experience? The latter is a more second-hand experience but is a wonderful way of living it again, this time with more knowledge and understanding.
Not sure if the analogy holds up

Not so much it hurts, but I've certainly found myself cut off from the rest of humanity as I enjoyed several books lately - once even missing my train stop as a result! My current book is Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which certainly has the capacity to whisk you away into its strange and wonderful innder world. I felt very similar about a non-fiction book too, Jim Steinmeyer's excellent Hiding the Elephant - the story of the grand age of illusionists, their wonderful illusions, their enormous egos and their petty squabbles, not to mention a darn good read too. In the past, there have many books that affected me, so it's a bit unfair to single any out for particular attention, but that quality is certainly one way to recognise greatness.

Andy

It hardly ever happens to me any more - but it did when I was kid. Only music can do that to me now. Weird.

Cath

The last time it happened to me properly, in that I really, honestly couldn't put it down and read it straight through, was with Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami. I have done that before with other of his shorter books and his longer books read in just a few days (I think The WInd-Up Bird Chronicle took me 4 days).

There have been books that I have loved and found hard to put down, but have done due to reading on a train or just being really tired.

I think the last book to effect me in that way was James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. It's an account of the author's time at a famous rehabilitation centre in the US and I read in an interview with Frey (after reading the book)that he wanted reading the book to be like an addiction. He certainly achieved that and I just couldn't put it down, avoiding all the rubbish TV I usually watch on a Saturday night to finish it. It was a very emotional book, and I felt very empty for a few days after reading it. I was thrilled to find that Frey has written another volume, called My Friend Leonard, but I've decided to hold off on reading that till I'm prepared to have my life completely taken over again by a book!

L

I did just that at the weekend when I read a vampire novel written by a friend of mine. Like most of us, she’s struggling to get published. I have to say that vampire isn’t my favourite genre, but I couldn’t stop reading this. The plot, the dialogue, the characters, were so good, so readable, it pushed all the buttons for me. It’s such a shame I cant give you an Amazon link to it.

Dee

As a child, it was Jean George's "My Side of The Mountain", and more recently it was Bernard Hare's "Urban Grimshaw & The Shed Crew". The first because there's a male "thing" about being self sufficient (even now I love backpacking), and the second because I used to drive through the area of Leeds that the book's set in every day, at the time when the book is set.

So for me, it's about having some connection with a book.

I'm actually in that place at the moment, reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. I've never read anything by her before, but a friend recommended it to me in the summer after we visited Hever Castle, the Boleyn's family home. It is just fabulous. It's the story of how Henry VIII came to marry Anne Boleyn, told by her sister Mary, who was his lover first. It brings the rather horrible reality of the Tudor court to life so much. I can't put it down. This is yet another book I'd class as 'not my usual cup of tea' (I keep reading these lately and being pleasantly surprised)and I can't recommend it enough!

For me this is the usual situation with any book! Any novel that I'm enjoying gets read at every possible opportunity, usually following me around the house. It's a lot easier for me to talk about books that haven't grabbed me, where I really do begin to feel like it's a chore to continue reading.

The last one of these was recently picked up for me by SO in a charity shop. Some of the worst writing I've ever encountered and one of those published novels that makes you want to run out in the street and shout 'HOW????? Did this get published?'.

It's now back in the charity shop, which is probably it's greatest contribution to mankind.

Jon

Sticking with the historical theme, my all-time 'can't put-down' favourite is Robert Graves' 'I, Claudius' and its follow-up 'Claudius the God.' I have read and re-read them, and yes, the '70s TV series DID do it justice. I remember some friends of mine got their first colour telly on the strength of it, and as I always watched it at their house I saw the first few episodes in black & white.

Graves gave me a taste for fictional 'biographies' of Roman emperors, which was more than satisfied by the novels of Allan Massie. I've still got his 'Caligula' sitting unread on the shelf, because I know I'll really enjoy reading it so I'm savouring it! Does anyone else do this with books you can pretty much guarantee you'll love? I've also got the last volume in Armistead Maupin's 'Tales of the City' series waiting to be read. I CAN'T read it because then it'll all be over and I won't 'see' those characters any more. I suppose it explains why I can't leave my own fictional characters behind; if I'm writing something new, they just have to come with me. Lack of imagination, or the result of reading too many 'serial' pony books when I was a kid? I still feel as if I'd know Ruby Ferguson's Jill if I bumped into her in ASDA, or Monica Edwards' Lindsay and Tamzin. Always assuming that the economic climate and Surrey property prices have forced them to move to the grim North...


Julie

The last book that had this effect on me was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Sussana Clarke. Quite simply, a stunning read by any account. My only complaint is that it ruined books I tried to read after it. The Amulet of Samarkand has been left unfinished by the bed, and I just can't get into it. So I'm sniffing around the classics. I'm absorbed in Bram Stoker's original Dracula at the moment, and eyeing up Gulliver's Travels.

JB