I suspect that most readers of Literary Review would happily categorise themselves as ‘book lovers’. But, of course, that means real books. Can you be an ‘e-book lover’ or a ‘Kindle-cuddler’? Or is that frigid intercourse the same as having a relationship with a blow-up sex doll?

Susan Hill’s monograph is devoted to what poststructuralists call the ‘erotics of reading’. With her it’s very much bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, a body-and-soul relationship. An autopsy would find a reading list alongside her heart.

One of the reasons she married her