#BookReview Bookworm – a memoir of childood reading by Lucy Mangan

About the Book

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one.

She was whisked away to Narnia – and Kirrin Island – and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy, and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With Charlotte’s Web she discovered Death and with Judy Blume it was Boys. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home.

In Bookworm, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-beloved books, their extraordinary creators, and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way.

Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life – prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate – and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.

Published by Square Peg

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Hive.co.uk

Book Depository

MY REVIEW

Can I give this 6 stars?!!

If you answer yes to either of the following statements then this is the book for you;

1. do you love books?
2. were you a child?

I adored this book!! Being a similar age to the author I found I was immediately taken back to my childhood and discovered books in many of the same ways that she did, and the passion she has for books and reading comes across clearly in the way she writes this book! There’s great fondness for the books and a great humour too!

It was so wonderful to look back at so many childhood memories via the books we read, and I have to say that some of the titles included were new ones to me so I’m a little eager to go and check them out although I’m wondering if they’ll still have the same appeal to me now – I’m sure they will!

This book shows you the joy of discovering new worlds, new characters and the endless possibilities that opening a book as a child brings and how important the role of books can be in educating and informing, and bringing different ideas to young minds and I think we all still feel that excitement now when we start reading a new book.

I also loved all the 80’s mentions, the excitement of visiting the library and the role that parents play in bringing books into your life when you’re a child. It was just so delightful to go back and relive those times of discovering the worlds of Narnia, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume – to name a few – and I will be recommending this to every reader I know!!

                                                                        💟💟💟💟💟

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When your best intentions fail …. here’s another bookhaul!!

I may have mentioned in my reading resolutions for 2017 that I was going to be more reserved and thoughtful in my purchasing of books this year!  That WAS going well until today when I ventured out shopping where there were evil bookshops and charity shops luring me in!

I was good in Waterstones and browsed, while mentally buying about 6 or 7 books, so thought I’d cracked it and was showing new levels of maturity! It didn’t last too long as I then ventured into WH Smiths where I am normally very well behaved and just wander around sniffing books as I go, but today I noticed they had a few (5 to be exact!) of the Penguin ClothBound Classics that I didn’t have in my collection at home and they were being advertised for £9.99 each….. I couldn’t NOT at that price surely?!  And when they were rung through the till they seemed to have a 5 for 4 deal –  inside I was squealing with delight!!!  So it was obviously meant to be – does anyone else use that as a way of justifying a little splurge??! – and so I am extremely delighted with the latest additions to my Clothbound Classics collection….

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

And then there was the obligatory look around a couple of charity shops – always happy to find books that have been on my radar for a little while so my happy book buying day was complete!

The Long Way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers

Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman

The Strange and Beautiful sorrows of ava lavendar by Leslye Walton

So that is it for now… again… no more….. i promise….. please believe me…. I can do this……. honest……….