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For myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end.
— Jorge Luis Borges

Imagination

Books hold the world’s stories - from the earliest known myths and legends to postmodern fictions. They are also keys that unlock inner worlds.

Childhood is where the imagination begins. Our earliest experience of reading allows us to travel to new worlds, to inhabit the voices and lives of new characters. As adults, we never lose this sense of discovery, this capacity to journey to other places and other times through books.

Throughout history authors have created unique literary works that transcend place and culture. These literary greats speak to us across language and time, telling universal stories that tap into the collective journeys of the imagination.

Some authors look to the past for their creative inspiration, bringing real-world characters in history to life, as does Peter Carey when he imagines Ned Kelly.

With the growth of popular culture, works of the imagination have exploded the accepted literary rules. We are dazzled with outrageous tales in new forms, as with pulp fiction, comics and more recently graphic novels.

Books do many things - they entertain us, they give us pleasure, they allow us to escape the everyday, they offers us simple truths. At their most fundamental, books allow us to imagine ourselves as other than who we are.