'An emotional connection'
'My feeling is that we know the benefits of literacy and the comforts of literacy - but we still don't know the benefits of reading the great works. I mean, there is no scientific proof that you will become a better, wiser person if you plough your way through Dostoevsky. Now, there are all sorts of reasons why I read the books that I read; but I think we've lost the sense of being able to tell people that what they should be looking for in a book is an emotional connection that makes you feel excited and alive, and you're as likely to find that it a 'literary' novel as in a popular novel.'
Nick Hornby in The Times