

How could I refuse? Well, I did end up loving the book, though things never worked out between the two of us. He insisted I take it home over Christmas break and read it. It was forced upon me by a boy in my dorm, who lived down the hall and on whom I had an enormous crush. I first read it when I was eighteen, a freshman in college. Of Human Bondage is one of the very first classics I ever read for pleasure, and I still love it. "Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment."
