Books about reading

[MissHoneyPenny]

I’ve just finished The Enchanted Hour by Meghan Cox-Gordon. A great read about the magic of reading aloud. Mainly focussed on reading to children but also emphasises the benefits for all ages.

A particularly poignant quote:

“There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.” - Warsaw ghetto survivor Helen Fagin

Any recommendations for books about reading please?

I loved this Japanese novel!

What You Are Looking For is in the Library

“An inspirational tale of the love, comfort and growth you can find in the pages of a good book.
___
What are you looking for?

So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi.

But she is no ordinary librarian.

Sensing exactly what someone is searching for in life, she provides just the book recommendation to help them find it.

We meet five visitors to the library, each at a different crossroads”

https://amzn.eu/d/j3L5bMg

Howard's End is on the Landing

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again.

A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, Hill's eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in her home, neglected for years. Howards End is on the Landing charts the journey of one of the nation's most accomplished authors as she revisits the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing.

I love this book and re-read it regularly.

Yes - two by Lucy Mangan. Bookworm is about her childhood reading and how it shaped her view of the world and Bookish covers the time from GCSEs to parenthood and the loss of a loved one and the part reading played in those experiences. I listened to the audiobooks, which Mangan reads herself - her tone is absolutely right, dry and funny but never flip. Both are out as paper books and Bookish as a recent release, is in a beautiful hardback.

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink is quite similar vibes to the Lucy Mangan mentioned above. I thought it was great!

I've also come across Reading Lessons by Carol Atherton but haven't tried it yet.

Reading Lessons was very good - written by a teacher of secondary English, combining her love for the books with social commentary on the teenager life

Francis Spufford’s The Child That Books Built.

I’m a big fan of Harold Bloom. His How to Read and Why is definitely worth a look.

Dorothy Butler's books about children's reading are wonderful - a few years old now, but many of the books she mentions are still in print:

• Babies Need Books
• Five to Eight
• Cushla and her books

Seveneves

Loving it

Read Yourself Happy is amazing.